Visit to Smurf Village (Blue Hamlet) Júzcar

Since we are without pool this summer and things are heating up we decided to make a Summer Bucket List with the older girls of things we can do, adventures we can take and places we'd like to visit. This weekend we hopped in the car and drove to Júzcar in Malaga which is a couple of hours away. This small village with only 228 inhabitants wouldn't normally be on most people's list of places to visit until it was elected to become the Smurf Village in 2011 as part of a promotion for a movie release. The village later lost the rights to call itself the Smurf Village and now is known as the Blue Hamlet but that hasn't stopped the townspeople from maintaining the blue hue on all the buildings or the various Smurfs to be found throughout.

The village itself is found after driving down a winding mountain road which was quite beautiful. The surroundings are gorgeous and it was about five degrees cooler in Júzcar than back home which was nice.


We had a walk through the town and lunch at one of the several restaurants which had outdoor seating with a view. Sadly I think that a lot of the attractions which the village offers are not working due to COVID. There were rock climbing walls and a zipline located throughout the town but they weren't functioning at the time (although according to the local website they should be at the weekends http://www.juzcar.es/). 



I only somewhat jokingly told the girls that we should paint our new house blue. They really did look beautiful when contrasted with the green mountains and the flowers that were still blooming throughout. There were also hidden Smurfs to be found around if you were paying close attention. Can you spot the Smurf in the picture of Vera above?



Although started as a clever marketing ploy, the Smurf Village aka Júzcar has been able to capitalize on its uniqueness to attract tourists from all over. While there we heard people speaking French and saw several foreign license plates in the parking lot that was created right outside the village to accomodate visitors. In a region dotted with white villages or pueblos blancos, a blue one really stands out and it was a cute visit. We even came home and watched the Smurf movie so the promotion is still working to the benefit of both locals and film.


I would recommend a quick visit to Júzcar especially if people are also visiting nearby Ronda which is BEAUTIFUL. On a side note, we even took Cooper along with us on this day trip because it is so hot and we didn't want to leave him home all alone in the house (I'm not 100% sure he hasn't been barking a lot when alone which is probably making our temporary neighbors crazy). One of the good things about Spain in general is how dog friendly it is. There is not usually an objection to having them in restaurants with outdoor seating and I've found that villages are especially not a problem for dogs since a lot of times there are local dogs just wandering around.



We've planned several more road trips and getaways for the summer which I will continue to post about as we check things off our Bucket List with these beauties.

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