as if they were ghoststhe remains of churches, bridges and even entire towns resurface of the reservoirs when the heat is intense, the rain does not come and water consumption remains the same or even increases, inevitably attracting onlookers who sometimes disturb the tranquility of these natural spaces.
It is what is called “drought tourism”about which the mayor of Vilanova de Sau (Barcelona)Joan Riera, who has chosen to restrict access to the Sau reservoir, collapsed due to the large influx of tourists who want to enter the church of Sant Romà, submerged in 1962 and which has now been completely exposed due to the drought.
“We don’t have to celebrate this influx of tourists because it is the consequence of a natural disaster that is greatly affecting our area,” said Riera, who regrets that this influx has caused, in some cases, “uncivil attitudes” and “has made it difficult to access of the neighbors to the town”, detained on the road for more than an hour.
“It is good that there is tourism and that they enjoy the town and the valley, but it is true that so much tourism also harms us,” argues the mayor, who assures that in recent weeks more waste has accumulated than the rest of the year, which ” generates a great expense for the City Council”.
What Riera calls the “instagram effect” it occurs around other remains uncovered by the sharp drop in water level, as occurs in numerous municipalities in Galicia where villages, forts or petroglyphs have resurfaced and are visited daily by many onlookers without major apparent problems.
In the Ourense town of Bandewith just 1,500 inhabitants, enjoy numerous treasures, the most spectacular of which is surely the Roman military camp of Aquis Querquennis, also known as “A Cidá”, in fact one of the province’s tourist landmarks.
Less than thirty kilometers from Bande, already on the border with Portugal, another of the treasures is the town of aceredoin the Lindoso reservoirdisappeared in 1992 and whose ruins have been uncovered due to the drop in water level for months.
The construction, which was born from an agreement between the dictatorships of Franco and Salazar, erased from the map decades later the houses that stood in A Reloeira, Buscalque, O Bao, and Lantemil, flooded on January 8, 1992 and that today attract numerous onlookers from both sides of the border.
The province of Lugo It also enjoys its particular “Galician Atlantis”, such as Portomarín, on the banks of the Miño, one of the rivers that best reflects the consequences of the lack of water during the summer season. The current lack of water allows tourists and the curious to stroll through the old streets of the town.
in Cantabria, the general director of Cultural Heritage and Historical Memory, Zoraida Hijosa, has indicated to Efe that, as always, when times of drought arrive, the Ebro reservoir exposes the cathedral of fish; the ruins of the Noguerol bridge, which can be seen “perfectly from Burgos and Cantabria”; and also the skeleton of the Orzales aerodrome, in Campoo de Yuso.
As in these places in Cantabria, the influx of onlookers is not massive in the Asturian reservoir of Grandas de Salimeone of the three on the Navia riverbed, where it is common every year around this time for the old slate walls of the town of Salime to come out, although people who go to visit the power plant or who do the Primitive Way of Santiago.
More than 800 kilometers to the south, in the province of Cordobathe lowering of the water level allows to resume the investigation of the Iberian deposit normally hidden under the Sierra Boyera reservoir, which is at 12%.
In this case, the professionals of the University of Granada are the only privileged ones who for the moment can reach this enclave, dated between the 6th and 2nd centuries before Christ and discovered in 2017.
In the Iznajar reservoirthe largest in Andalusia by capacity although now below 18%, it is traditional that the descent of the water allows the vision of the structures that it flooded in 1969 and also of an Iberian necropolis and Roman remains, for which guided tours are being organized that for now are being a success due to the interest that has aroused among the population.
in Extremaduraapart from the well-known megalithic complex of the Guadalperales Dolmen, in the Valdecañas reservoir, the drought has also exposed the La Mesta bridge, in Villarta de los Montes (Badajoz), over 200 meters long, dating from the 14th century and that it was a passage for cattle through the Cañada Real Leonesa.
The most prominent example in Aragon It is the tower and the esconjuradero of the town of Mediano, which in times of drought, when the swamp of the same name drops in level, re-emerges from the bottom of the waters that flooded both the church and the houses of the town.
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Castile and Leonwhere the swamps are not as worrying as in other regions, the descent of the Cuerda del Pozo swamp, in the province of Soria, reveals these days the Roman bridge of Vinuesa and a good part of the tower of the church of the town of La Muedra, which is flooded when the reservoir rises in level.
In addition, in Aguilar de Campoo (Palencia), the drought has exposed the ruins of the medieval bridge (13th and 14th centuries) of the disappeared town of Villanueva del Rio, although, for the moment, the presence of some visitors has not generated here any kind of business.