Juzcar - The Spanish Village That Voted Itself Blue

image credit

For hundreds of years the smart houses of the tiny pueblo of Júzcar, near Malaga in the Spanish province of Andalucía, were whitewashed. There was nothing particularly remarkable about the village of 220 souls and it attracted just a few hundred tourists each year.

Then in the spring of 2011, the executives from Sony Pictures turned up. They were looking for one of the White Towns of Andalucía to be painted blue. At first the villagers were incredulous but the executives maintained that the publicity stunt, created to mark the opening of The Smurfs movie (Los Pitufos in Spanish) would make the village stand out. Just a little.

(thanks Robert-John)