Malaga Province is well known for its ancient White Villages; Pueblos Blancos, the houses, as the cliché says, spill down hillsides like giant sugar cubes.
Dating back to the Islamic Al Andaluz era of Andalucía’s colourful past, these villages have narrow streets and alleyways, fronted by simple homes, where red geraniums and claveles fill windows sills, and scented jasmine cover doorways.
Yesterday, on the way to Ronda for lunch with family, we drove through Cartajima and on towards Júzcar. I had heard strange things were afoot in this tiny mountain enclave. 
Júzcar, a small village nestling in the Genel Valley close to Ronda, is breaking with tradition and is swiftly turning blue! Some of you may recall my blog entry on Chefchoen back in 2008 – a historic village in the north of Morocco that echoes the style of Andalucían mountain communities.
Chefchoen is famous for being painted in a pastel blue – giving the village a surreal, magical quality. It is funny how colour can change perception so significantly.
Yet Júzcar is not paying homage to its Moorish roots; instead it is part of Sony Pictures publicity campaign for its forthcoming ‘Smurfs 3D’ movie that will launch this summer.
Although not yet officially unveiled, the village is to form part of the worldwide launch for the animated adventure. Smurfs (Pitufos as they are called here) are still curiously popular in Spanish culture and the village of Júzcar is surely to become a site of pilgrimage for fans, but hurry – Sony has promised to restore the village to its characteristic white shortly after the launch.
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Loved this one Andrew, almost a ‘blue movie’, great, so informative and I loved the cat (what a poser) !!
Tell me how I can forward this to my friends here.
Besitos. x
A smurf village, how surreal!
What a great story !! haha..Los Pitufos ,que graciosos ..
Almost all blue and will be so for the summer of 2011. the colorful chimneys of Juzcar’s Hotel Bandolero are now blue as well.