‘We are not like the rest of the Andalucía’: the rugged charms of Almería, Spain’s desert city (opens in new tab)

While Málaga battles overtourism down the coast, this ‘forgotten’ working port city revels in its outsider statusPerched high on the battlements of Almería’s 10th-century Alcazaba, looking over the mosaic of flat roofs tumbling down to the sea, I’m reminded of author Gerald Brenan’s travel classic South from Granada, and his impression upon arriving in Almería in 1920: “Certainly, it seemed that the sea was doubly Mediterranean here, and the city … contained within it echoes of distant civili...