Did you know... It's Illegal to Build a Sandcastle in Spain?

Spain despises your attempt at making sand castles so much you could be fined if caught building one in Spain.

And the fines vary by location at their discretion. On the island of Majorca, for example, you could pay €100, but you could pay up to €1,500 in Galicia.

Before you ask, yes, kids are included in this restriction — and parents foot the bill.

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CookieCrumbs · F

Are you sure? I was in the Canary Islands and even witnessed a sandcastle competition…

Viper · M

@CookieCrumbs I am absolutely sure that a website said it lol, I have absolutely no idea if that website is correct or not. (Go to the bottom paragraph for the short answer).

But I just tried to do some research on the subject, and a Spaniard responds was the following.

Spaniard lawmakers tend to make very general laws (such as sand castles are illegal) and then let the local law enforcement use common sense in enforcing them.

As for sandcastles being illegal, this was because people were going to very popular beaches and staking out a HUGE area to build mega Sandcastles and conflicts from it were happening too often. So they made a law.

And instead of making a law, that sand castles areas could only be so big (which would even more arguments and measurements and be hard to enforce), they just made an easily enforceable law that sandcastles are illegal, to make it easily enforceable and basically say the other group has the right away to enjoy the beaches.

They also said, as long as you're not bothering anyone or creating a conflict of any type, you can generally build sand castles to your heart's content.

So yes it's illegal to build sandcastle, but sounds like it's not enforced unless you're creating a conflict. And up to law enforcement to use their judgement more than very detailed law.

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