In May 1967, a thin, pale junior male student from a rural market town celebrated his seventh birthday with his parents. I'm home at Margrat de Mar, a beach resort near Barcelona, rather than under the big sky in East Anglia. His Liverpool parents left the city in 1959 to seek better job opportunities in the eastern part of England, and in the difficult times of the late 1960s they upgraded their family homes from modest council homes to mortgage-style three-bedroom semi-finals.
The holidays were also upgraded – from caravans in Great Yarmouth and Clacton to join the first delightful waves of Britons heading towards the sun-drenched Spanish Costa. Foreign holidays were literally booming and booming in the late '60s, with the wavy brown hair boy excited for his first flight trip and staying in a hotel with a swimming pool, newly acquired red and white lilo and a seemingly endless supply of chocolate milk. His parents chose a chilled drink that was certainly not chocolate milk.
The boy is me and my parents sadly set out to the great sunrounger in the sky, so I can't confirm the holiday prices or the name of the beachfront hotel. However, I'm sure it was with the now obsolete Clarkson travel group, and we flew out of Luton on Courtline or Danair (known as Dandare after the science fiction hero of Eagle Comics).
It was a great week: an endless time at the Lilo in the pool, a birthday present of Matador posters from a holiday rep (a charming young German woman; Ingrid?), and a train line by the beach, and I was hooked on the expression of rushing over the sand. Dad also took me to Barcelona FC's Now Camp Stadium, which he said was impressive, but Anfield's KOP had a much more atmosphere. He was a clever person.
And in 1967 Spain was still under the dictatorship of General Franco's general and the dictatorship of a cohort of military-style Guardia civilian police attacking machine guns at the stern, along with his curious Tricornio leather hat. A source of considerable appeal for me (from a safe distance).
Was it exciting to be a pioneer in British tourism to Spain? Absolutely, for a few days back in Miss Frost's class I admired my schoolmates in Spanish tales (mainly chocolate milk and speed trains on the beach).
Miss Frost, as I recall, will probably scare Guardia civil police officers as she terrorized the 7-year-old class! So fast forward about 50 years just before the pandemic.
The boy is now in his late 50s and certainly not thin, and is uninterrupted by his wavy brown hair. And I'm on a Mediterranean cruise with my wife Debbie. The ship is next calling in the gorgeous Santorini in the Cyclades Islands of Greece.
It should be one of the highlights of a week's voyage. It turns out to be an overly Hades.
There were at least five medium-sized cruise ships anchored in the Caldera, which abandoned thousands of passengers by bidding on a small port under Instagramfave Fila at Clifffoottop.
The queue to ride the cable car was boring. Then we emerged in the insanity of Fila itself. Jam-Packed doesn't cover it properly. It was a quagmire for those who shuffled the narrow streets and sweated the humanity that bumped into each other.
Shops, cafes, bars, streets, churches… everything plunges into it. It's really awful. Debbie and I agreed that this is not something we would take part in. And there were just too many cruise passengers to visit in a day. We released bail.
The Cable Car Cue of Hades was avoided, and slid down Donkey's poop slim cobblestones on the stairs of Caraborades and retreated onto the ship. Never again, we said. Something needs to be done.
And Santorini took action. Measures to alleviate overtourism pressures include taxation and daily limits on the number of cruise passengers, as well as limits on the number of ships allowed to visit. Other ports such as Nice, Amsterdam and Venice are also implementing restrictions, with Juneau in Alaska considering options.
Spain is at the forefront of overturism protests by locals, with cruise restrictions in place in Barcelona and Palma, Mallorca.
This has a much broader issue in its impact on public tourism and communities, not just cruise passengers. Of course, there is a huge amount of valuable income that it can generate.
Billions are poured into the economy, and hundreds of thousands of jobs should not be ignored, so that the complaints of local people in Spain, Greece and Italy are not ignored. It's a very difficult problem to balance.
In fact, the issue is far closer to homes, with concerns about holiday hotspots Norfolk and Cornwall, and tourist towns are choked in high season and “hollow” due to the rise of second homes and short-term rentals such as Airbnb.
So, what can we do? Restricting access to a cruise ship seems reasonably simple and effective, but it is not easily pasted due to complex and emotional issues.
Nightly tourist tax? More and more common, they only grift some quids for the local council, and travelers are shrugging, paying, and standing up.
allocation? I don't know how it can be implemented with freedom of movement. How can you stop people on planes to Barcelona or Tenerife?
Avoid traditional hotspots and discover new, fewer visited places? This seems like it could be fun to spread the load and explore fresh destinations. It might be a little cheaper.
Do you want to go during the low/shoulder season, where it's not too crowded? Again, it spreads the load, could share revenue a few months ago, and could save you a few more.
Are you at home? The British love the holidays, it's not much sunny here. Good luck with that.
