Spain yesterday urged foreign tourists to return from July as one of Europe’s strictest lockdowns eased, with streets gradually filling again and some pupils returning to school.
The world’s second-most visited nation closed its doors and beaches in March to handle the COVID-19 pandemic, but has seen out the worst and plans to lift a 14-day quarantine requirement on overseas arrivals within weeks.
“It is perfectly coherent to plan summer vacations to come to Spain in July,” Spanish Minister of Tourism Reyes Maroto told radio station Onda Cero, as Spain geared up to salvage a tourism industry that normally draws 80 million people a year.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The hard-hit capital, Madrid, was coming back to life yesterday, with people allowed back into its main Retiro park and a few bars and restaurant terraces reopening.
“This is great, I was really looking forward to it. And so was my dog!” interior designer Anna Pardo said, walking her pet in the sunshine in the Retiro.
Strolling, jogging and chatting, Madrilenos passed through the park’s shaded alleys or stopped for a moment to enjoy its small lake, still devoid of the usual rowing boats. More cars buzzed through streets.
Though bars and restaurants are now allowed to open terraces at 50 percent capacity, but cannot welcome clients indoors, few restarted in Madrid yesterday morning, as businesses weighed the value of catering to just a few customers.
While most pupils in Spain still need to stay home and study online, some schools reopened in the northern Basque region.
Spain has recorded 28,752 coronavirus deaths and 235,772 cases, but has seen daily fatalities drop to fewer than 100 for the past week.
In half of the country, including the popular Canary and Balearic Islands, even more restrictions have been lifted as lockdown has moved one notch ahead to a phase 2.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
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Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
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