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INSIDE SPAIN

Inside Spain: 10,000 crumbling castles and Galicia’s ‘pyromaniac’ ad

In this week’s Inside Spain we look at the struggle to preserve the country’s more than 10,000 castles and how a promotional advertising campaign for Galicia looks like it’s inciting people to torch the region’s forests.

Published: 27 July 2024 10:48 CEST
Inside Spain: 10,000 crumbling castles and Galicia's 'pyromaniac' ad
The tone deaf tourism campaign poster by Galicia's Xunta government appears to be encouraging people to torch the region's forests. Image: Xunta de Galicia

You’ve probably spotted a few castles on hilltops over villages as you’ve driven through Spain, and that’s because they’re everywhere. 

Each of Spain’s 50 provinces has at least a dozen or two, if not hundreds, as in the case of Barcelona, Cuenca, Cádiz, Soria, Zaragoza or Guadalajara.

The preservation of these vestiges of Medieval (and more often than not Moorish) Spain were actually a priority for Spain’s fascist dictator Francisco Franco, who in 1949 rolled out legislation which banned any of Spain’s castillos (castles) from being demolished.

However, Spain’s castles are “in general” in a “calamitous, catastrophic” state, Miguel Sobrino , author of the study “Castillos y murallas”, told Spain’s leading daily El País.

From the Napoleonic Wars to poor restoration jobs between the 1960s and 80s, many are the reasons that have meant that only a handful of these castles are in a presentable state. 

“Castles are like beetles, they die and dry up on the inside, but they seem to be alive because the exterior does not change,” Sobrino added metaphorically about the fact that many of these fortresses still look impressive from the outside and from afar.

Others blame the lack of funding from public coffers, and the fact that there is no law in place encouraging private investors to act as patrons for Spain’s heritage. When there is money available, the mayors of the underpopulated villages where these castles are usually located don’t always know how to organise the restoration properly.

Spain’s crumbling castles are another example of how “Empty Spain” is often overlooked and underfunded, despite being some of the most vivid examples of the country’s rich history.

Something that has been getting the attention it deserves (but for all the wrong reasons) is an English-language tourism campaign by the government of the green north-western region of Galicia.

“It’s a match, Galicia” reads the poster, with an icon of a flame and, in the background, a photo of the lush forests of Galicia’s Ribeira Sacra.

It was meant to draw a parallel between Tinder’s “It’s a match” slogan when the dating app puts two people together, and the fact that Galicia is ‘a perfect match’ for tourists.

However, social media users were quick to pick up that the wording and imagery appeared to be inciting people to set Galician forests on fire.

“As much as the Culture Council tells you to, don’t take matches to the mountains,” one X user jokingly wrote in response.

Even though it’s a harmless lost-in-translation gaffe, forest fires are no laughing matter in Galicia, nor anywhere else in Spain. 

Galicia had its worst forest fires ever in 2022 and the following year was a particularly terrible one for incendios (wildfires) in Spain, with more than 85,000 hectares scorched.

2024 hasn’t been as bad a year for forest fires yet (46 percent less than in 2023), but we are now in the midst of the heatwave season in Spain, when these destructive blazes tend to rage hardest and for longer.

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INSIDE SPAIN

Inside Spain: Flirting in Mercadona and the weirdest tourism protest yet

In this week’s Inside Spain we look at the new viral trend involving flirting at Mercadona supermarkets and how a village in Galicia has found a very odd way of protesting against mass tourism.

Published: 31 August 2024 10:54 CEST
Inside Spain: Flirting in Mercadona and the weirdest tourism protest yet

If you live in Spain or have been here on holiday, there’s a very big chance you’ve done grocery shopping at Mercadona.

But did you know there’s ‘a time to flirt’ at the country’s most popular supermarket?

It all started with a TikTok video that’s gone viral (although if there was someone in Mercadona’s marketing department that came up with the campaign they should definitely get a bonus). 

Everybody in Spain is talking about it. The idea is that if you turn up at a Mercadona between 7pm and 8pm, that’s la hora de ligar (the time to flirt), and there’s a secret language of love as well. 

Putting a pineapple upside down in your shopping trolley means that you’re ‘available’ and ‘interested’. 

Then you have to head to the wine aisle, and if you spot someone you like, you have to bump your trolley against theirs. 

That’s what singletons 40 and up should do if interested in amor de Hacendado (love of Hacendado, Mercadona’s home brand).

For those aged 19 to 25, the frozen goods section is the place to meet prospective lovers.

In your thirties or mid-twenties? The fresh fish section, of course. 

It all may seem a bit silly, but we wouldn’t be surprised if pineapple sales go up exponentially in Spain and Mercadona’s turnover spikes as a result.

In fact, there are already videos circulating online of packed Mercadona supermarkets when the clock strikes seven. 

In completely different news but perhaps just as surreal, locals from the Galician village of O Hío in northwest Spain decided recently that the best way to protest against the volume of summer tourists they receive was by blocking zebra crossings. 

The idea involved choosing crossings where pedestrians always have right of way (no traffic lights), so several dozen locals simply walked up and down them for 37 minutes, causing a total traffic gridlock.

“Traffic problems are already common, but this year they have tripled at least. It’s an avalanche of cars that not only pollutes but also affects everyone’s lives because they park wherever they want,” O Hío resident Mercedes Villar told local daily La Voz de Galicia.

“We have the right to live too”.

People from this small coastal village in Pontevedra province say they’re not against tourists, but that authorities have to find a way for holidaymakers and residents to “coexist”.

Locals’ driveways are being blocked, yellow lines are ignored and traffic accidents are more common.

“The protest was meant to raise awareness and sound the alarm,” another villager told La Voz.

“We want people to be civil and understanding and if they see that there is no parking space, to leave, as we all have to do in any city”. 

2024 is proving to be the year of Spain’s rebellion against mass tourism and the effect it’s having on property prices, rents and standard of living for residents. 

From Cantabria in the north to Málaga in the south, more and more places in Spain are asking for local, regional and national governments to fix a tourism model that no longer works for them.

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