The REAL DEAL (almost) - Right on your doorstep (well, almost...)
The longest established of three theme parks existing in this area, Mini Hollywood is a good 2 hour drive from Ranchito. The other two, Western Leone and Texas Hollywood, are still working locations, at least some of the time, but Mini-Hollywood is now entirely given over to the theme-park business. Its heart is a Wild-West set, what one critic calls "your standard Spaghetti-Western town." And most of it is deliciously, authentically false - real, phoney buildings that were actually used in films.
Some of the movies that were shot here are legendary: Sergio Leone's 'Dollars' trilogy (A Fistful of Dollars, 'For A Few Dollars More and 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly') starring Clint Eastwood as the Man with No Name, 'Django' with Franco Nero, the sequels to which never seemed to end... over a hundred titles were at least partially filmed in these dusty streets. Almerķa was also used as a location for other film genres after the sixties (Patton, The Wind and the Lion, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade...) but it was the spaghetti-western that really defined the relationship between the province and the film industry.
Easy to find - just head for Almeria, then Tabernas..
Located near Tabernas, Mini Hollywood is a great day out for the kid in all of us!!
