Early Doors: Shut on the first day of the season

Yesterday was the first day of the season - I think I might have mentioned this in the previous entry. First day of the season and the first day when tourists flock in. Or so one might hope. But even if they do or don't suddenly descend on the resorts en masse, the instruments of tourism should, you might also hope, be fully functional.

It's a Saturday in Alcúdia, the old town. I am passing what was the tourist office near to the town hall building. It has closed and will re-open some time as a health centre, or so I am told. There are notices informing visitors that there is a new office. This doesn't prevent one set of tourists and then another, a few moments later, trying to get into the silent office. I am in full being-helpful-to tourists mode. I may not actually hug them, but I am on hand to give them a hand. Lucky them. There is a new office, I explain, and give directions, even if they are also on the notices. Thank you, say some Germans. Thank you, say some French. And off they go. I'm the tourists' new best friend. I wish I hadn't bothered.

I remembered that I had to go to the horror that is the redeveloped Can Ramis building, the one that houses the new tourist office, and take some photos. So off I go, thinking that I'll have a word with the tourism folk while I'm there. Can Ramis may be a disaster in terms of architectural misplacement, but as I near it I think that the tourist office looks quite impressive. Big I's in blue making it clear what it is. Lots of glass showing its interior. This is a good idea. Not intimidating. However ... It's the first day of the season, and the office is shut. To be fair, it does say, on another notice, this one on the door of the new office, that it is closed on Saturdays, but surely, I also think, they could have made an exception on this, the first day of the season.

Having taken a couple of snaps of the rotten building, having been startled by an art exhibition in one of the display areas that looked like it was stuffed full of merchandising for sports companies, having gone upstairs to another exhibition that might just as easily have been housed in a potting shed - given the number of pots that were the exhibits - I head off towards the auditorium. I walk past the reception to the Roman ruins. A group of Swedish tourists are trying the gate. They shouldn't have bothered. There is, after all, a bloody great padlock on it. First day of the season, and Alcúdia's main tourist attraction is shut. To be fair, there is a notice saying that it is closed on holidays, and the first of May is one such, but I can't help but think that they might have made an exception on this, the first day of the season.

It has been remarked before now that at times an impression is given that Mallorca does what it can to put off tourists. This would be unfair to the Pollentia site and especially to the Alcúdia tourist office, but why close on this day, of all days? But them's will be the rules. Working hours, union regulations, the stiff arm of bureaucracy. Yet here, with this closed office and this closed attraction, you have everything that isn't quite right with attitudes towards tourism.


QUIZ -
Yesterday: Bruce Springsteen, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_JxD0l2uPo

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.