


You may have heard of war tourism - adrenaline seekers who go on vacation to Afghanistan, for example - or poverty tourism, with guides taking foreigners through Brazil's crowded slums. In Western Europe, another type of alternative tourism seems to be cropping up with people who are eager to see the shattered remains of the continent's boom-and-bust economy. Lauren Frayer took one such tour of Valencia, on Spain's east coast, and sent us this report.

MIGUEL ANGEL FERRIS GIL: (Foreign language spoken)

LAUREN FRAYER, BYLINE: Miguel Angel Ferris Gil runs a wastefulness tour in his hometown of Valencia.

GIL: Here we are in the face of the Valencian parliament. There we begin, we start all our tours, our wasted tours, protesting against the political corruption and waste.

FRAYER: Every Saturday, he charters a bus to take people past government buildings where bribery is rumored to take place, and then to elementary schools where kids to go class in trailers. He wants to show foreign investors where their money has gone.

GIL: There are a lot of people in European countries, especially England and Germany, because they put a lot of money into our economy. They're interested to know where there is the money? And we go to show you where there isn't the money - at the public schools, at the hospitals.

FRAYER: The bus tour cruises past unfinished construction projects. Here, a half-built soccer stadium. There, posh but empty buildings standing as sad sentinels at the mouth of Valencia's port, which once hosted the America's Cup sailing race.

GIL: (Foreign language spoken)

FRAYER: This was built for America's Cup?

GIL: Yes, 30 million euros, and there is nothing, (Foreign language spoken). This is the cost of a hospital - 30 millions of euros.

FRAYER: These are Spain's so-called white elephants, public infrastructure projects that gobbled up billions in taxpayers' money, and whose upkeep is now bankrupting the economy. Most prominent among them here in Valencia is the City of Arts and Sciences, a massive museum complex.

GIL: We are here near the Arts and Science city. It's the skyline of the mother Valencia. There is 1 billion and 400 million of euros that are wasted here. And we have a very strong debt.

FRAYER: Miguel Angel and his business partner, Teresa Galindo, are former journalists who felt like their newspaper reports about wastefulness were falling on deaf ears. So they tossed out their press badges and became activists instead.

TERESA GALINDO: (Through Translator) Every day they surprise us with another case of corruption, or politicians losing money. It makes us mad as citizens. As time went by, we decided we had to do something. So, we started designing our routes.

FRAYER: Tours like this are popping up across Europe. Liam Taylor - speaking here via Skype from London - is a high school civics teacher who moonlights as a tour guide with Occupy London, showing tourists around the British capital's financial district.

LIAM TAYLOR: From my school playground you can see these enormous glass towers in which bankers trade billions of pounds each day. And yet, my school might as well be in a different universe because the area of London in which the school is has the highest rate of child poverty in the U.K. And so there's an enormous juxtaposition.

FRAYER: In the Czech capital Prague, you can take a tour dubbed the best of the worst - past luxury villas, a botched railway and an empty field where an Olympic stadium was paid for but never built. Taylor, with Occupy London, says he's thrilled to learn that he's part of this accidental network.

TAYLOR: It's interesting because we came up with the idea of this tour completely independently, and then obviously people in Spain have done the same thing, presumably without hearing of us. But I think what people are craving is a deeper understanding of what has happened in the last few years. Because many people don't understand it very well, and yet it's having enormous consequences in all of our lives.

GIL: (Foreign language spoken)

FRAYER: A ticket for Valencia's wastefulness tour costs about $10 dollars. Tours have been booked solid since they began last spring. Around 50 tourists a week, from Japanese visitors to the 84-year-old Spanish widow who comes nearly every week.

GIL: Eighty-four years old. She's very enthusiastic.

FRAYER: For NPR News, I'm Lauren Frayer.








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