Today we have a a 5 hour Gibraltar highlights tour we’ve booked with a Cruise Critic group. We all meet in the Schooner bar – Linda (the tour group leader) and her husband Brad from Mt. Pleasant, SC (almost neighbors!), Mark and Angie from Kansas City and Pam and Barb from Washington state. A nice group to share the tour. We head out to the dock and find the tour operator, but find a total bottle neck. The storm passed through Gibraltar the night before and scaffolding has fallen off a building blocking access to the port. After waiting for a while, we end up walking a little bit outside the port area to find our van.
Once situated, our guide, Christian takes us all over Gibraltar. First (after we find our way out of the port, which is a little challenging to get around the scaffolding “collapsement”), we cross the airport runway – seriously – the only road in and out of Gibraltar goes right across the runway, and drive to the border with Spain. Then we head out around the east side of Gibraltar, through the Dudley Ward Tunnel which is sort of creepy because the roadway is just tunneled right out of the limestone rock – no concrete forms or anything, just the rock. Neat, but creepy.
Leaving the tunnel we work our way to the end of the peninsula and Europa Point. It’s one of the southernmost points of Europe, and from here there are great views of Africa across the water.
There’s a nice little lighthouse and a memorial to the Polish Prime Minister, Skiorski, who died in the air crash of 1943 while trying to protect the province.
Great views back up to the Rock here too…
…and oddly enough, a mosque as well. Guess it’s not too odd, given that Africa is right across the way.
Next we start to wind our way up the Rock. Our destination is St. Michael’s Cave, a natural grotto that once was used as a WWII hospital but now is a natural auditorium. But first, we have a pit stop for the Barbary Macaques! Wow. Right on the side of the road – eating their breakfast of pasta. And a baby too. First sighting, they are so cute - and could care less if we were there or not. Funny!
We make it to the cave, which is beautiful and we can only imagine how wonderful music would sound here with the natural acoustics. The stalagmites and stalactites are magnificent, massive and lit beautifully. Very magical here.
After the caves, we continue to work our way up to the top of the rock- with incredible long views…
…and the Barbary Apes! This is the largest pack of the apes on the Rock, they are very docile and again – don’t even care we are there. Christian tells us how the government feeds them 3 times a day, and makes sure they are protected. They are allowed to touch us, we are not allowed to touch them though. We’d read that they will come up and grab things off of you – like your sunglasses, scarves, etc. But not these guys. Besides getting on top of the vans, they’re just as unconcerned as they can be.
We all reluctantly get back in the van and slowly make our way past the apes and down to the tunnels – passing more apes along the way. There is a wild pack down here somewhere that Christian says everyone stays away from because they can be pretty viscous. OK, we’ll stay in the van!
Next we get to explore the Great Siege tunnels. These aren’t the WWII tunnels, although some connect, these are the tunnels excavated in the late 1700’s with just the most basic of tools. It is pretty amazing that these things were cut out of the stone by hand all those years ago. They are big and wide, and wet (limestone – rain – it’s what you get), but not too bad and I’m not even claustrophobic.
Although I’m a bit put off by the spooky wax like figurines they have depicting soldiers. Sort of creepy.
But otherwise, it’s a nice lesson in how to protect 4 square miles of rock! The canons are still there facing out toward Spain and the view points are pretty interesting as well. (OK, so the airport wasn’t there at the time of the Siege, but still…)
An interesting fact – Gibraltar is only 4 square miles large, but has 26 miles of tunnels within the Rock.
Back outside we head down the rock to the Moorish Castle. This is a large fortification that was built around the site of the Moorish Castle in 1160. It was used for a modern day jail up until a few years ago – they moved the inmates because the monkeys kept getting into the jail and annoying the prisoners.
Our last stop of the day is the 100 ton gun. This was a huge (100 ton) cannon that they tried to take up to the top of the rock. The only way to get it up there was with man power (Christian had previously shown us the anchors in the ground that the men used to pull the cannons up the rock). No way 100 tons of metal were going up that Rock, so it ended up here at the west end of the isthmus, overlooking the water. It is one of only two like it remaining in the world.
Christian takes us back to the Marina area and points out a few good restaurants. A few of us hop off here, while the others go into the city center. We’re hungry and want to grab some wifi, snacks and drinks. We’re looking for a good restaurant with octopus, but prices are a bit shall we say, touristy, so we pass on the traditional “sit down” restaurant and find a cute little bar-cum-café called Bruno’s. The big appeal here is that they offer 4 tapas for 10 pounds. Works for us!
We sit outside on the terrace, but underneath an umbrella in case of rain (large, dark clouds are hovering around) and indulge a great snacking lunch of calamari (not tapas, a starter for me), chorizo (excellent!), meatballs, more calamari and chicken skewers. Works like a charm!
It’s still early, so we start to wander around the city center, but it’s packed with people and quite frankly, packed with ridiculously touristy stores – diamonds international and such. The heck with it, we walk back to the ship – running into Warren, our waiter, out snacking on Indian food with his friend.
Back aboard, we just hang out and relax, watching the harbor and its goings on.
Everyone makes it back aboard on time (and good thing, since the Captain loves to name names of passengers who are late). But, one thing that’s not on time is the refueling. The barge is tied up to the ship and will not leave. The Captain comes on to explain – basically we’re being held hostage by the fuel company – there figures don’t agree with the ship’s figures on how much fuel was loaded, so a little dispute is going on. And on. And on. Finally, an hour or so later, we are released. Wonder who won that little tug of war?
Off to a day at sea, then our final European port of Funchal, Madeira.
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