Malaga has a ‘Smurf village’ where every building is blue and kids love spotting all the characters
A VILLAGE in Malaga is attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors every year thanks to the fact that every building there is painted blue.
The Spanish settlement was painted in 2011 as a publicity stunt for the film The Smurfs, using 1,000 gallons of paint.
The buildings were left that way after locals experienced a huge tourist boom.
Juzcar saw tourist numbers increase from 300 to 80,000, according to .
Along with the paint job, statues and paintings of Smurfs were added around the village, and visitors can find plenty of Smurf souvenirs for sale.
Since then, kids and adults have flocked to the area to pose with some of the famous Smurf statues, such as Papa Smurf, as well as to track down the Smurf artwork around the village.
In 2017, an argument between locals and the heirs of Pierre Culliford - the creator of the Smurfs - started over a disagreement on how the likeness of the Smurfs was being used commercially.
It was previously agreed that the village could pay 12 per cent in royalties, but this didn't stop a notice being put forward to remove all Smurf references.
A notice, according to said "from Tuesday August 15 [2017] there will be no more statues or references to that brand" and it was re-branded as the Blue Village.
Despite this, Smurf statues remain in place with tourists posing with many of them and sharing it on social media.
However, recent tourist complaints have slammed the area for being closed during the off-season period.
They also claimed that it was difficult to get to, with it being 75 miles from Malaga, taking around two hours to drive thanks to the winding roads.
A remarked: "It was pretty empty and most of the restaurants were closed including public toilets.
"No shops or much else to do there. It's a rather long and twisty road that make the trip not worth it."
Others said that the blue buildings were not kept up: "The blue colour looks horrible, is weathered, and does not fit in with the landscape."
More positive reviews claimed that it still looked beautiful, with kids loving to find the Smurfs along the streets.
Timeline of the Smurf village
July 2011 - Juzcar is painted blue for the release of The Smurfs 3D film
Dec 2011 - Locals vote on whether to keep the blue buildings following a tourist boom
2013 - Juzcar remains blue after 210,000 tourists visit in two years
Aug 2017 - Village told to remove all Smurf references after disagreement with cartoon creator heirs
2018 - Visitor numbers fall after being rebranded as Blue Village
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Other weird villages include the life-size dolls of Nagoro in Japan and a US village called Santa Claus.
A resort town in Turkey has also attracted record numbers of tourists after being painted all colours of the rainbow.
Kuşadası was painted using more than 50,000 litres of paint as part of a paint companies project to bring "colour to underprivileged communities".
