Gibraltar

In the last few weeks, we have mentioned our plans to visit Gibraltar to quite a few Spaniards, and each time we have been met with negative responses. Most people told us that it wouldn’t be worth our time and that it was WEIRD. The insistence that Gibraltar is a really strange place just made us feel all the more curious to check it out ourselves. And it was kind of weird. Mostly because it seems to stick pretty well with British culture and the English language, even though it’s a small town on the tip of Spain.

Unfortunately, our time in Gibraltar was cut short. The first bus that went in that direction was full, which is not abnormal for a Monday morning according to a chatty fellow bus-rider who had purchased his ticket in advance. So we waited in Barca de Vejer, which basically consists of a bus stop and two cafés, for three hours until the next bus passed through. We finally made it to La Linea a little bit after 1:00. La Linea is the city right on the border of Spain and Gibraltar, and the bus station was only a couple of blocks north of our destination.

We passed through the easiest customs line we’ve ever experienced. We kept trying to show people our passports, or letting them look in our bags or something, but they just waved us along. The first thing we noticed in Gibraltar was the presence of the red telephone booths like those in London. The second strange thing that we noticed was the fact that the busy Winston Churchill Avenue that we were walking crosses perpendicularly with the runway of Gibraltar’s airport. A sign was posted saying that pedestrians and bikers are to be cautious when crossing and to do so quickly. We withdrew 20 British pounds from an ATM (the pound is approximately equal to the Euro right now), and entered the city center through the landport bridge, once the only passage by land into the city.

The Rock of Gibraltar from the airport runway/Winston Churchill Avenue

Because we were short on time, our primary goal was to visit the Upper Rock Nature Reserve. So we blasted through Main Street, which was mostly high-end clothing stores, fish-and-chips restaurants, and a few tourist shops, towards where the cable car from the Rock appeared to end. The cost of the entrance fees into the sites and a ride up to the top of the Rock ended up being about £10 more expensive than what we were anticipating (no more Frommers.com for us), but what could we do? We had already come so far!

Up at the top, we stopped at St. Michael’s Cave, the Great Siege Tunnels, and the Moorish Castle. Obviously we would have enjoyed ourselves much more had we not been rushed, but as it was the whole thing felt like a tourist trap and was a little bit disappointing. We spent most of our time running back and forth, up and down the hilly streets on the Rock. Because, you know, we wanted to get our money's worth.

However, the view from the top of the Rock was great, and the overly-comfortable monkeys were amusing (I kept thinking of how unhappy Sarah must have been when she visited; those things were everywhere!). 

Somewhere down there, John & Yoko were married.