Last Thursday there were long traffic jams in the Soller Tunnel and at entrances to the town - up to three kilometres long. The jams were on the very day that town hall signs began giving information regarding parking availability. The signs are on the main road from Palma. By midday, the signs were indicating that there was no available parking.
But the traffic flowed on and now an initiative has been launched on social media entitled ‘Welcome to Sollerland’ to denounce the overcrowding in Soller. It is an open profile on the social network Instagram that uses images created with artificial intelligence to recreate the future of some characteristic spots and attractions in the area.
The first post was published four days ago and is entitled ‘If you ask AI: What will this summer be like in Soller? This is the answer’. Alongside it are several illustrations of the Plaza de la Constitución, with the iconic façade of the church of Sant Bartomeu overwhelmed by tourists and hire cars.
The famous train also appears crowded with people. Another post shows the tram packed with people with frightened faces, while another photograph recreates a crowd of people on Repic beach.
The profile has published several AI recreations of images. In the first, a man surrounded by a crowd holds a sign that reads ‘I was from here’. In the second, a young woman on a train in Soller with dozens of tourists holding their mobile phones is wearing a T-shirt with the same slogan as the previous one. The most recent image is of a child surrounded by beachgoers eating ice cream on a beach holding a sign with the phrase ‘I used to play here’.