Reading the article is behind a wall, but the short documentary of the same name is available for FREE on Youtube:
Terry S
in this film, Preikestolen, Kjeragbolten, Nordkapp plateau, have become very unnatural places because the huge flow of tourism.
Author writes under her film on Youtube:
"a reflective documentary exploring modern tourism and the transformation of serene European landscapes into curated attractions"
Not sure what "curated" means here, but places chosen illustrate very well what is a tourist hole or zoo. Around mn 11:30 buses stopped by a fake Sami set-up. Couple tents, a guy in the pointy hat and a small reindsdyr. It is similar to going to a zoo to see animals.
In COVID time when foreign tourism was banned, I drove several times to inner Sogn fjords just in order to enjoy villages and landscapes as they naturally are, or rather, were, a feeling that disappeared more than twenty years ago.
Several old towns in Europe are impossible. In order to enjoy a walk, take pictures, have to be there a week day out of main holidays. Tallinn, Gdansk, Krakow, Brugge, Gent. Some have become a mix of bad taste and kitsch: most central areas of Berlin and the worst, Kreuzberg. Some are just unpleasant: Montmartre hilltop, place du Tertre.
At some very low populated places, in Norway, in Iceland, there is something else: there is no enough local workforce for the increased tourism business, people working in hotels, restaurants, souvenirs shops are foreigners. For instance at the logistic hub Flåm (Norway) in the bakery you hardly find someone speaking norwegian, also at Fretheim hotel were only management and accounting are norwegians. Or in Reikjavik, along Laugavegur, the hotels and shops. It feels very weird when you address people in norwegian in Norway or icelandic in Island and they answer something in english. At such places they have the assumption that english will do, but in fact it is far from being the case, at least in Norway, Reykjavik is a different beast, half colonized by americans who systemically dismiss people's languages.. In Spain a lot of people working in bars, hotels, restaurants, are south americans, so linguistically identical despite not spaniards. Excepted at dedicated british, germans ghettos here and there along the coast. These ghettos are the quintessential anti-tourism: it is about brits, germans, scandinavians, who are there because the sun and cheap beer, but re-create some gregarious tribal home structure, their "Spain" has no spaniards.
