Nothing to see here in Oregon. Thanks for not visiting.

I watched In Bruges soon after it was released. A dark comedy that was well done.  The city and the architecture called me.  I figured that if life unfolded well, then I surely will go to Bruges some day.  That continues to be the plan.

As if that was not enough, a couple of years ago, a student was chatting with me about the summer he spent in Europe with his girl friend (who later broke up with him!)  He said they loved Bruges.

However, people in Bruges are not happy that there are millions of people like me who want to go there.  They are getting sick and tired of the tourist mob.

Last week the mayor, Dirk De fauw, elected in October under the slogan “Go with De fauw”, announced that the municipality would no longer advertise or promote day trips to the city. Measures would also be taken to cut back the number of cruise ships able to dock at nearby Zeebrugge from five a day to just two. Cruise companies will also be asked to dock during the week rather than at weekends to help spread the crowds.
“We have to control the influx more if we don’t want Bruges to become a complete Disneyland here,” De fauw told the Flemish TV channel VRT

I can certainly feel his pain; it is no fun when "travellers outnumber residents in Bruges city centre by about three to one."

Bruges is but merely one place where tourists are becoming a pain.  As the world has gotten affluent, domestic and international tourists are everywhere.  I witnessed this in India too. 

The magnitude of tourists is of serious worries to places all around the world.  Overtourism is a real problem for the locals, the natural environment, and for tourists too:

So if we think that you want to get your perfect selfie with, you know, Christ the Redeemer in the background because you're in Rio, you're talking about in some cases literal square meters of space that hundreds, even thousands, of people are flocking to get these photographs, and this has led to really, really crazy phenomena. So you know, for instance, during the California poppy super bloom this year, there were thousands of people descending on literal individual fields in certain small towns. And that's not really something that had occurred 20, 30, 50, 100 years ago.

We are victims of our economic progress.  Here in Oregon, we have come up with an awesome vaccination against tourists: We continue to spin tall tales about how awfully rainy and wet and miserable the conditions are.  This way, we can keep those pesky tourists away and enjoy the landscape all to ourselves ;)

Such gorgeous sights on gorgeous days can never happen in rainy, cloudy, Oregon.
So, head to Bruges instead ;)