Gibraltar

Well, I finally made it to Gibraltar. We have been by it at night several times, but was never able to stop and see it. I made it.

Since early times, Gibraltar has always had a military presence. The Moors were here for centuries, Spain took over for a little while, and finally England made their presence permanent. Here you can see some of the early walls that were built.

One of the things that I always wanted to do was drive across the runway at Gibraltar. We get on the Winston Churchill Avenue and head to the airport.

Because of Gibraltar's size, there is a road that crosses the runway. People drive and walk across it on a regular basis. When a plane is about to land, they lower the gates just like at a train crossing.

Here you can see a person walking across.

Next, we head up the BIG rock, the Rock of Gibraltar. I spied the mailbox on our way.

Of course, there are canons around every bend.

As we approach the top, we stop to commemorate the Pillars of Hercules.

As we are going up, I keep seeing these metal rings anchored into the wall. Our guide said that these were put into the rock to pull the canons, etc. up to the top. These roads were so steep, not even horses would have been able to pull wagons up, let alone canon. One canon at the top required over 100 men to pull it up the side of the mountain.

 

We get to our next stop, St. Michael's Cave and see our first monkeys. There are five groups of monkeys on the mountain and are free to run as they see fit as they have from the beginning of time. The local government feeds them twice a day and makes sure they are healthy

However, they are know for taking hats, jewelry, etc. from the tourists. Here a worker is sweeping up a broken cup that one of the monkeys had stolen and thrown on the ground. She told us that it happens two to three times a week.

St. Michael's Cave is amazing. It is a natural cave that is big enough where they have concerts in it. It holds about 150 people and I bet the sound is amazing as the acoustics are great. They are continually changing the lighting as you can see from the pictures. We had a number of steps and it is a good that that Rexie was not aware of this when we went in or she would have not gone. But it was well worth it.

 As we ride further up the mountain, we come across more monkeys. They are not scared of us, but do not like to be touched.

One even jumped on the van and rode with us about a quarter of a mile, It was amazing.

Inside the mountain are over 28 miles of tunnels, which were designed and built during World War II in case of attack. The tunnels had a hospital, ammunition dumps, mess halls, barracks, etc. The Rock of Gibraltar was critical as it controlled the Straight of Gibraltar. While the Italian Air Force continually bombed Gibraltar, because the mountain goes straight up, they had to get low to bomb and the guns on the mountain were able to protect the tunnels without a major issue.

While there is a able car to the top, there is considerable amount of walking involved if you want to see the sights

Here is a shot of our ship, the Horizon from near the top. You can see how hazy it is. This is fog, not smog as we are so high.

On the way down, we passed the Moorish Castle, which was one of the earlier fortresses. It is tough to see from the picture, but all of those black spots are where cannon balls hit the castle with minimal damage.

As we wind our way through the town, the streets are narrow just like most towns in Europe.

 We made it across the runway twice and to the top and back without an incident. Here is the best guide in Gibraltar, George. George was born and raised in Gibraltar and was only away when he served in Her Majesty's Navy.

Thanks George for an amazing day. Mark one item off both our bucket lists: driving across the runway and seeing the monkeys.

Tomorrow, we stop at Lisbon, Portugal, another place new to us.

I must be off!