Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic ADVERTISEMENT\u201cCome on, next!\u201d barked the market vendor as she shoved a warm, cinnamon-scented glass of mulled wine into my hand and gestured me onwards.\u00a0There is a twenty-minute queue behind me, so I understand that the reputed Alsatian hospitality doesn\u2019t have room to shine at Strasbourg\u2019s overcrowded Christmas market.\u00a0In this city and the surrounding region, December is the most touristy time of the year, with over five million overnight stays recorded in the last five weeks of 2023.The Land of Christmas is suffering under the strain of visitorsAfter all, Alsace describes itself as the \u2018land of Christmas\u2019. In a somewhat flowery language, the region\u2019s tourist board wrote that local towns turn into \u2018living paintings\u2019, where market stalls sell gingerbread and mulled wine on a backdrop of \u2018children\u2019s adoring laughter\u2019 and \u2018enchanting\u2019 carol singing.\u00a0For many locals, however, this Christmas magic has become a curse, plaguing their towns and villages with impassable crowds, traffic jams, and noisy streets.\u00a0\u201cThere are times when you physically can\u2019t move through the crowds at these Christmas markets,\u201d says Daniel Ehret, a tour guide lecturer and Alsace local.\u201cThere are long queues everywhere. I\u2019ve even seen fights break out in the bathroom queues\u201d.\u00a0Ehret recalls a distressing incident involving an elderly woman who, unable to reach the toilet in time, had an accident. \u201cThat is an extreme example of the scenes of overtourism we see, but what has become clear is that we have stretched these markets to the limit,\u201d he says.\u00a0Alsace\u2019s Christmas markets are now being carefully managedFor several years, locals have expressed their concerns about this overcrowding, which makes it challenging to park, walk around, and even sleep, as the Christmas markets are often followed by noisy nighttime revelry.\u00a0Several villages and towns have taken initiatives to limit the crowds: Strasbourg reconfigured its massive Christmas market into fifteen smaller sections spread around the city.\u00a0Kayserberg has limited the size of its markets, while the town of Colmar has published a crowd calendar similar to those produced at theme parks.\u00a0\u201cPeople can see when the market will be quiet and choose to come during those times,\u201d says \u00c9ric Straumann, mayor of Colmar.\u00a0\u201cSo far, we have noticed a slight increase in people during the off-peak times, meaning there has been a slight evening out of visitors,\u201d\u00a0 he adds.\u00a0Colmar also offers buses to nearby villages and their smaller Christmas markets – although these places, too, are feeling the pressure of overcrowding.\u00a0Christmas is \u2018a stressful time for the locals\u2019The village of Riquewihr is straight out of an illustrated book of fairytales, with its colourful timber-framed houses surrounded by vineyard-covered hills.\u00a0ADVERTISEMENTBut during the month of December, the 1,050 yearly residents are joined by 450,000 visitors.\u00a0\u201cIt is a stressful time for the locals,\u201d says Daniel Klack, the mayor of Riquewihr. \u201cChristmas season requires a lot of patience.\u201d\u00a0To tackle this problem, Klack has limited the size of the market to 43 stalls spread around the village. The village hall has also organised a carpark a few kilometres away, with shuttles bringing visitors into the centre.\u00a0A similar system operates in the nearby town of Kayserberg. Christophe Bergamini,\u00a0 director of the tourist office of the Kayserberg Valley, notes that visitors still try to get as close as possible to town and often park their cars along the main road. \u201cIt creates traffic, as well as safety issues, as you have lots of pedestrians walking on this busy road,\u201d Bergamini says.ADVERTISEMENTAll the same, Bergamini is reluctant to use the term \u2018overtourism\u2019.\u201cWhat we have in Kayserberg is moments of high crowds,\u201d he says. \u201cEspecially on Saturday afternoons and around dusk, when people come out to see the Christmas lights \u2026 but it has nothing to do with the situation in Barcelona or Dubrovnik,\u201d he says firmly.\u00a0The winter visitors make Alsace residents question where they liveThis overcrowding during the winter months undoubtedly affects locals’ quality of life, as Ehret explains that it impacted his decision of where to live.\u00a0\u201cWhen I bought a house, I knew I had to avoid the centre of towns like Riquewihr,\u201d he explains. \u201cAnd I\u2019m not alone. People are asking themselves whether living in these beautiful town centres is worth the hassle.\u201d\u00a0ADVERTISEMENTFor Ehret, the situation is rapidly reaching its limit, and he says more extreme measures will be needed.\u00a0\u201cAt some point, towns will no longer be able to absorb any more tourists. And they will have to limit the numbers, like Venice,\u201d he adds, referring to the Italian city\u2019s plans to charge an entrance fee to limit visitor numbers.\u00a0Charging an entrance fee for the markets has been discussed in many towns, but officials are reluctant.\u00a0It\u2019s a \u201cfalse good idea,\u201d according to Straumann, who explains that it would create a bottleneck at the different entrances to the town, leading to large queues that would be inconvenient for locals and visitors alike.\u00a0ADVERTISEMENTThere\u2019s also the difficulty of sealing off every entrance to the old town centres, as Bergamini notes. Klack, agrees, saying that charging for the entry \u201cisn\u2019t really in the spirit of the event. It would make the market feel like a theme park.\u201d\u00a0One thing is for sure: the overcrowding problem will not go away soon.\u00a0Most Alsace Christmas markets no longer run advertising campaigns, yet their fame continues to draw visitors from France and abroad.\u00a0Whatever measures had been taken to tackle the crowds, the mayors agreed on one thing: so far this year, numbers are higher than ever.ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic ADVERTISEMENT\u201cCome on, next!\u201d barked the market vendor as she shoved a warm, cinnamon-scented glass of mulled wine into my hand and gestured me onwards.\u00a0There is a twenty-minute queue behind me, so I understand that the reputed Alsatian hospitality doesn\u2019t have room to shine at<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":153903,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-153902","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-travel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153902"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153902\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":153904,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153902\/revisions\/153904"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}