“They enter our houses, they sit on our terrace”: picturesque village on the island of Menorca wants to be completely closed to a million tourists | Travel
The idyllic village of Binibeca Vell on the Spanish island of Menorca has long been a magnet for tourists who want to stroll along the winding, narrow alleys with whitewashed houses. This year even a million visitors are expected. But they show little respect. The villagers have now had enough: “Binibeca Vell must be closed”.
As the village’s popularity continues to rise on social media and there is a rush to take selfies in the cobbled streets, residents are threatening to block access to the village altogether, writes ‘The Guardian’.
The flow of tourists seems to have no end. After all, visitor numbers continue to increase. Last year, 800,000 tourists came to Binibeca Vell, most of them arriving between May and October. “But this year the village expects as many as a million visitors,” says Óscar Monge, who heads the organization representing the 195 homeowners of Binibeca Vell.
“Binibeca Vell is not a place for adventure, but it is a place where people live,” Monge explains. “If the government continues to fail us, we will hold a vote among the owners in August on whether we should close this place,” he explains.
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The threat follows years of complaints from the villagers. Speaking to Spanish news website elDiario.es last month, a resident expressed her frustrations about how tourists behaved during their visit to the village last summer.
“They went into houses, they sat on chairs, they took things, they climbed on our walls, they had parties in the open air,” she said. Not to mention the waste left behind by visitors. “If no measures are taken, this will happen again every summer.”
On the village’s website, tourists are urged to refrain from “entering houses” and “climbing balconies”. The request is accompanied by a series of photos showing a tourist stretched out on a staircase and another sitting on a resident’s chair.
We want to be able to have breakfast quietly on our terraces and sleep in without noise
Oscar Monge
This month, tourists were already asked to only visit between 11 a.m. and 8 p.m. “We want to be able to have breakfast quietly on our terraces and sleep in without noise,” says Monge.
Finding a good balance between the well-being of residents and the increasing number of tourists is a tricky issue that has been going on for some time in much of Spain and other tourist regions in Europe. “If the government continues to fail us, we will hold a vote among the owners in August on whether to close the village,” Monge said.
He says the closure is the last resort. “From the coast you would still be able to visit the wider area of the village, but you would no longer be able to enter the inner streets,” he adds. “And that is the great photo that everyone wants for Instagram.”
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