European Deserts

According to the Condé Nast Traveler (CNT) website, 'There are a number of semi–arid spots dotted around Europe that qualify under various geographical definitions of "desert," none more certainly than the badlands of southeastern Spain. The Desierto de Tabernas there is often called "mainland Europe's only desert."'

Further down the page, CNT notes that 'the rugged landscape of Tabernas makes it a dead ringer for much of the American southwest, so it's become a popular location for movie crews. Sergio Leone filmed his famous "spaghetti westerns" there. The three mock–Western towns where he shot Once Upon a Time in the West and other classics have been made over as Wild West theme parks, where tourists today still enjoy re–enacted gunfights and roundups.

In conclusion however, CNT notes that 'The land around Almería may look more like the Old West then anywhere else in the Old World, but it's far from the only spot in Europe that's arguably a desert. Sometimes that's a result of climate, as in the case of Santorini and Anafi, two Greek islands that the Köppen system classifies as BWh: hot desert. Sometimes it's due to deforestation, like a plain in Romania that locals have called "the Oltenian Sahara" since the trees were chopped down under Communism. The interior of Iceland might be the most interesting pseudo–desert in the world: there's plenty of precipitation, but nothing ever grows there because the porous lava rock absorbs it all as soon as it falls.

According to CNT then, the only place on the European mainland that might be called a desert, apart from Tabernas, is what has been called the Oltenian Sahara – which is the result of recent human activity. This is part of what's known as the Romanian (or Wallachian) Plain. It's in the extreme south of Romania, on the left bank of the Danube (known here as the Dunav) – which forms the border between Romania and Bulgaria.