Mediterranean coast — from the Guadalhorce to Cabo de Gata

• Albufera — a coastal lagoon, cut off from the sea or only loosely joined to it. Adra has the one on this road.
• Sabinar — a wood of sabina, a juniper that holds dunes. Punta Entinas is the example.
• Rambla — a dry river bed that only runs after a storm. They cut the Almeria shore.

The route leaves the city at the mouth of the Guadalhorce, west of the airport. The river has been boxed and farmed, but the remaining wetland is still a pause for birds crossing the Strait. You come for the hides and the sky, not for a wild delta. Sugar cane used to stand here as a hint of the tropical strip further east; most of those fields have gone. The hills behind the city are the Montes de Malaga — a different day, inland pine, not the shore.

• Mouth of the Guadalhorce — map
• Montes de Malaga Natural Park — map

East of the Axarquia the coast stands up. The protected cliffs of Maro and Cerro Gordo drop into coves that the dual carriageway never sees. Gulls use the rock; the water is clear enough that people stop for that alone.

Nerja is the town on the Malaga side of the provincial line. The Balcon de Europa is a stone balcony over the sea — useful, busy, and the photograph everyone takes. Walk it once, then take the old road through Maro if you want the cliffs.

• Cliffs of Maro-Cerro Gordo — map
• Coves below the cliffs — map
• Balcon de Europa, Nerja — map

La Herradura is the horseshoe bay after the cliffs. The water is sheltered and often clear enough to snorkel close to the rocks. Past the bay the hills are terraced for chirimoya (custard apple), avocado, mango and some papaya — the subtropical belt of the Granada coast, with Motril in the same valley system.

Almunecar keeps a Phoenician and Roman past under a later town, a castle of San Miguel on the rock, and an old centre that still works as a market town rather than only a strip of apartments.

This is also the bottom of the mountain road from Granada via Otivar, if you came the other way.

• La Herradura — map
• Viewpoint above the bay — map
• San Miguel Castle — map
• Almunecar old town — map

Once you cross into Almeria the plastic greenhouses begin. The stop that is not plastic is the Albufera of Adra, a lagoon of real use to waterbirds on this dry coast. Adra town has a harbour, a paseo and Civil War shelters if you like that layer. The lagoon is the reason this page includes the town.

Further on, before Roquetas thickens, Punta Entinas-Sabinar is dune, salt pan and sabina juniper. Audouin’s gull and other coastal species use it. The salt flats are the look: white, shallow, working. Roquetas itself is the resort; the reserve is the turn before you accept the promenade.

• Albufera of Adra — map
• Adra shelters — map
• Punta Entinas — map
• Salt flats — map

Almeria city sits in a dry bay with the Alcazaba above it — the tenth- and eleventh-century fortress that still reads as the main monument. The old streets below are a short walk. The beaches close to town are useful, not wild.

• Alcazaba of Almeria — map
• Old town — map

Cabo de Gata-Nijar is the end of the road in the useful sense: a volcanic natural park, dry, with coves and a lighthouse. Monsul is the pale beach Spielberg used for the tank scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. San Jose and the other white villages are the bases. You need time and a car that can take dirt tracks if you want the last coves. It is not an add-on after lunch in Nerja.

• Cabo de Gata-Nijar Natural Park — map
• Fishing villages on the cape — map
• Beaches of the park — map