The emerging tourism in the 60s was to change the Spanish province Costa de Azahar significantly. The agricultural areas on the beach, which were rather useless at the time, increased in value and the center of life of the people has shifted. Farmers and fishermen became hoteliers, real estate agents and restaurateurs, who since then have been trying to fulfil the tourists‘ dream of a perfect summer holiday. Today the hotels and holiday resorts are an integral part of the landscape and attract several hundred thousand guests to the region in the name of the financially strongest industry of our time. For the locals this is both a blessing and a curse. The majority of the people live from tourism, which often means a 7-day week in the summer months. During this time they have to earn the entire annual income. However, unemployment rises over the winter, and almost all hotels and restaurants are closed during this time.

It was at this time that I first visited the coastal town of Peñíscola. I stood between palm trees, closed cafés and large, uninhabited hotels, which only give a hint of the spectacle in summer. Everything reminded me of the postcard idyll of a prototypical summer vacation. The idea of living in this place gave me a strange feeling of loneliness. This feeling led me back to this place for three months in the winter between 2019 and 2020. I began to question the sense of the infrastructure as well as the extent of tourism on the locals.