. . . and you wouldn’t want to live in any of these locations either
CURSE OF HARRY POTTER’S HOME
IT WAS only when the Ranzetta family went to the cinema to watch the 2010 film Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows that they realised their half-timbered home in Suffolk formed the computer-generated backdrop for the scene in which Voldemort murders Harry’s parents. Since then, coaches packed with Potter fans have flocked to the medieval village of Lavenham in Suffolk to take pictures of themselves in front of the 15th Century house. And when teacher Jane and her husband Anthony, a retired health professional, put the Grade I listed house on the market for £995,000 in June 2017, they found it would not sell – and still won’t. ‘Most potential buyers want a quiet life but living in the house is like being in a goldfish bowl,’ said Mr Ranzetta.
FANS LOVE THE PINK MEWS HOUSE ACTUALLY
‘I HAD no idea this was in a film when I bought it,’ said the owner of the pink mews house in Notting Hill that appeared in 2003 hit Love Actually, with an all-star cast including Keira Knightley and Colin Firth. ‘And now I am living under a blanket of selfies, tour guides and a queue of tourists lining up to take photos at weekends. They even walk into my house if the door is open, thinking it’s some sort of theme park.’ The owner, who wishes to remain anonymous, now asks people to make a donation to homeless charities in exchange for taking a photograph. Kensington and Chelsea Council pleads with Instagrammers to stay away.
MAMMA MIA! – HERE THEY GO AGAIN...
ONCE they were a haven of peace and tranquillity. But since the 2008 film Mamma Mia!, locals on the
Greek islands of Skopelos and Skiathos have been inundated with Abba fans. On Skopelos, the island with the chapel and bay where the cast danced on the jetty, the narrow roads are teeming with cars and the beaches are crammed with tourists. On Skiathos, officials now issue €1,000 fines to stop people stealing pebbles from Lalaria Beach.
POLDARK’S VERY CROWDED LOVE SCENE
IT WAS the beguiling spot chosen for Ross and Demelza’s love scene in Poldark. Now the dreamy cliff setting at Porthcurno beach in Cornwall is crammed with snap-happy visitors, many arriving on open-top buses.
The local tourist board has now pleaded for people to stay away from the area on the Lizard
Peninsula, which was known as Nampara Cove in the BBC drama.
THE CAFE OWNER WHO HAS SEEN FEW PERKS
WHEN restaurateur Joey
Campanaro opened his Little Owl diner in Greenwich Village, site of the fictitious Central Perk coffee shop in the long-running sitcom Friends, he didn’t expect it to cost him a fortune. But in the run-up to the sitcom’s
25th anniversary, tourists have been blocking the pavement outside as they take selfies and deface the walls with graffiti. ‘It’s monkey see, monkey do,’ he said. ‘Take a picture of it and share it on social media. It’s become a bit of a cult.’ Vandals even ask restaurant staff for marker pens so that they can scrawl on the walls.
ELSA TOURISTS FROZEN OUT OF ALPINE VILLAGE
TOURISTS descended like locusts when it was rumoured that the village of Hallstatt in Austria had inspired the fictional town of Arendelle, home of heroine Elsa in Disney’s 2013 smash hit Frozen. Up to 10,000 people a day flocked to the village, a Unesco World Heritage Site with a population of just 780, to snap selfies and fly drones.
One resident woke up to find a Chinese tourist in her bedroom. But when a mystery fire ripped through a 16th Century building, Mayor Alexander Scheutz closed roads to the village.