5 days ago
Instagram tourists told to stay away from Spanish lavender fields
Instagramming tourists have been told to stay away from a Spanish village's vibrant lavender fields because huge numbers of visitors are placing a strain on local services.
More than 100,000 people flocked to the pastures outside Brihuega in July, and many of them were seen posing for selfies among rows and rows of purple flowers.
But Luis Viejo, the mayor, said he wanted people to avoid coming on weekends as the village could not cope with the amount of tourists arriving.
'Take last Saturday, for example: the village collapsed. It was a hard time for me,' Mr Viejo said.
'We have a wide range of tourist, cultural and artistic offerings thanks to lavender,' he told the ABC newspaper. 'But my advice is that people come and visit us between Monday and Thursday – please! Weekends are more difficult because of the huge quantity of people who come.'
The village's narrow streets, some of which are a thousand years old and are lined with shops selling lavender-related wares, overflow with tourists during the blooming season, with parking becoming a massive problem.
Mr Viejo said his village could be the victim of its own success in attracting tourists to the area.
He said that 'access to the fields is free', which means the village authority has no levers to limit numbers of visitors by restricting access or charging a fee.
'Ahead of next year, we need to build a park-and-ride parking lot on the outskirts of the historic centre and connect it with shuttle buses,' Mr Viejo said.
Lavender season tourism has transformed Brihuega, bringing in eight million euros thanks to the arrival of about 140,000 visitors, mostly during July.
'Managing such an influx of visitors in such a short time is difficult. We work hard, we have a security committee, but it's still a large turnout,' the mayor said.
Mr Viejo said the village now hosted 'the first five-star hotel' in the province of Guadalajara, adding that the challenge is to make tourism an all-year-round activity and less reliant on the lavender blooming.
The annual Lavender Bloom Festival this July will include concerts by major Spanish pop acts such as Los Secretos, alongside yoga workshops and watercolour sessions in the fields.
