Spain and Portugal for Visitors

Posted by : John Ross on Dec 30, 2007 - 12:23 PM spainandportugal

Air Madrid went under and Vueling changed hands; the Alhambra failed to make it into the New 7 Wonders of the World but the America's Cup held in Valencia was so successful there is a good chance of it being used as the next venue as well; jellyfish caused more alarm than pain on Spanish beaches; the number of Britons living in Spain topped the million; various new air and ferry routes brought Spain closer to the rest of the world than ever; the extension to the Prado Museum finally opened; and the spine-chilling project for a vast, Las-Vegas-style complex in the Monegros desert in Aragón was announced. One of the year's most entertaining stories was Ryanair's "shameless publicity stunt" (in the Guardian's gleeful words), a calendar of its stewardesses undressed in unlikely places. But I did not report what I hope will prove to be most important 2007 story from the point of view of Visitors to Spain and Portugal: the Spanish Environment Ministry produced the initial document,for what it wants to be its future Strategy for Sustainability of the Coast which, if any of it ever gets actually implemented, is entirely to be applauded, especially as it relates to the other big story - the end of the Spanish housing boom, one of the main factors working in detriment of the costas. More 2007.

Allow me to go back to the Ryanair hostesses for a moment, for no other reason except that I'm enjoying myself. The Guardian let itself go, as serious newspapers are wont to do when a sexy story combines itself with justifiable outrage. "Nicola (Miss April, from London) is nude," it pointed out, "apart from a thong and life jacket, which we hope Ryanair won't recirculate because she is sucking on the toggle." I bet whoever wrote that sat back and relished it for a good while before getting back to work. " Miss January," it goes on, "from Dusseldorf - all split ends and pneumatic breasts" (I don't know why they feel entitled to be rude about her hair. Or her breasts, come to that, which look entirely natural to me) "is draped over the cockpit" (no, she isn't, she is posing almost demurely, as you can see from the photo). " And poor Miss October, from Dublin... is actually soaping down the plane," the Guardian concludes, as if credibility were a desirable quality in a girlie calendar. Personally, they all look great to me. Not great enough to make me choose Ryanair over any other airline, but great.

I didn't report much on the Spanish housing boom when it was under way, so I didn't have much to say about it as it was coming to an end, either, though I did feel obliged to point out that the speculation about a housing crash was just that, speculation, and that a slump was unlikely. I may have been wrong, but not much - it now looks as though there will be a significant drop in house prices "in real terms," i.e., they will rise less than inflation for a few years. It isn't a subject I can get very excited about except in "anti-" terms, because a) even if your Spanish property does become "negative equity," I couldn't care less, and b) housing development in Spain has been responsible for an unbelievable amount of environmental desecration, and I have almost nothing good to say about it. If you have recently purchased a flat in Isla Cristina, for example, a noble place heartbreakingly concreted out of existence, well, I do realise that it is not directly your fault, but I hope you and your children die of something protracted and very painful anyway.

But there is an upside to the end of the Spanish housing boom - it will take at least some development pressure off parts of the Spanish coastline which are desperately threatened. The Environment Ministry's Estrategia para la Sostenibilidad de la Costa - Documento de Inicio is, as its title says, only a start, but it is a start, and a good one. In calm, thought-out, clearly argued terms, it points out the challenges and threats to the Spanish coastline, their implications, with more emphasis on practical and economic consequences such as loss of tourism than on the kind of upset which makes eco-sceptics say, "So what?" What is more, it sets out future remedial strategies and lines of action, and the really surprising thing is that these are not half-hearted but include expropriations, even demolitions. It is sad that much of what needs to be done is because the previous legislation protecting the coast - the Ley de Costas of 1985 - has been ignored to such a large extent by developers and local and regional politicians, and sadder that the effectiveness of future protection will to a great extent depend on how far these same elements can be convinced or coerced into cooperation. I'd have the lot of them sent to do hard labour in Botany Bay, myself. It is also disturbing that a conservative victory in the upcoming Spanish general elections could well undo the progress made so far.

There was more good news on the eco-front, not least in the business sector, where Spanish companies are getting the hang of the advantages of sustainability as a real goal, not just something to pay lip servce to. And it is just as well for, with Doñana practically closed in by development, the Mar Menor turned into a spill tank for fertilizers, stupid and unnecessary ports being built in both the Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands, it is, frankly, about time. The ecological low point of the year might have been when (I think) Ecologistas en Acción asked for the Tablas de Daimiel National Park to be declassified as a protected area, on the grounds that it no longer existed as wetlands, water off-take for agricultural use having lowered the water table to the point where it is normally as dry as anywhere else in the country.

I have called this article "2007 for Visitors to Spain" because news from Portugal was, frankly, thin on the ground. And the dominant story by far was that of poor little Madeleine McCann - best not to think about it.

You can always find Spain and Portugal for Visitors' back stories here, or using the Google search box on most of these pages. And do please tell us your own high or low points of 2007, either by adding a comment to this story or by submitting to the forum - in either case, the only requirement is to have registered as a user of this site.