The Countryside Property Portal for Almeria Province and the Costa de Almeria - Andalucia

The Los Velez area of Almeria lies off the beaten track in the far north of the province. Velez Rubio is surrounded by sierras, olive groves and fields of cereal. Here there is a magnificent Baroque church, the largest in the province, La Encarnacion on the plaza of the same name. Inside there is a magnificent 20 metre high carved wood retablo (altar). Very close to the town are the Cueva de los Letreros in which are prehistoric cave with red and brown sketches of human figures, animals, birds and astrological signs that date back to 400 BC. Also here is the Indalo, whose outstretched arms holding aloft an arch, it perhaps had some magical significance, or maybe was simply a marker indicating which tribe lived in this territory. It is now one of the most popular logos in Spain. The symbol, which appears in other Neolithic sites of eastern Andalusia, was adopted in the 1960s as an emblem by an avant-garde artistic movement in Mojacar, on the Almeria coast and has now become a symbol for the province of Almeria.

Velez Blanco nestles at the foot of a rocky outcrop north of Velez Rubio it has a picturesque former Muslim quarter, the Barrio de la Moreria and is crowned by an impressive 16th Century castle, an extension of the original Moorish Alcazaba. Further paintings can be found at La Cueva del Gabar to the north of the pueblo. Viewed from a distance the Sierra Maria-Los Velez, with its sheer mountain slopes gouged by centuries of rain and wind, holds little indication of the treasures it conceals. Yet this 54,000-acre area, now protected as a nature park, has many surprises for the visitor, including a rural lifestyle long disappeared from other parts of Spain. Here, goatherds still spend the night under the stars as they guard their flocks, families bake their daily bread in the communal oven, and day-to-day business is carried on at an unhurried, human pace.

The Sierra Maria-Los Velez nature park, with its landscape of mountains and pine forests, makes for excellent walking and off-trail biking expeditions, aside from harbouring a unique wildlife. This is one of the few places in southern Spain where you can spot squirrels, for instance. It is also home to the threatened European tortoise and the reintroduction of the impressive Griffon vulture, in an ambitious plan to repopulate the sierras with these high-flying birds.