Of Gibraltar, that is.
Gibraltar is about 120km away, roughly a 1.5 hour drive. We decided, when my parents came over for a visit, that we would go there for the day. It was somewhere none of us had visited.
We had heard mixed reports about Gibraltar. Many people who have visited comment that there isn’t much to see there. Others say that it is interesting (but probably also that there isn’t much to see there). We still wanted to have the opportunity to decide for ourselves.
We drove to La Linea de la Concepción and parked on the Spanish side of the border. We had heard that there are often long delays if you choose to drive across the border. On foot it was very quick and painless. I toyed with the idea of asking for a stamp in my passport, but didn’t. My mum noticed a sign saying that stamps cost €2.
From the border, you get to walk right across the Gibraltar airport runway. I can think of only one other time when I have been on a commercial runway without boarding or disembarking a plane. Matsapha airport in Swaziland, and that is a story for another time. It involved my mother driving at speed, down the runway whilst we ducked down behind the back seats for fear of being shot!
I think it’s fair to say that there isn’t a great deal of interest (to me at least) to see in Gibraltar. It is a small place with lots of buildings. Apartments, offices, shops. It was interesting (and a little weird) to see so many British products and for the GBP to be accepted alongside the Euro. But not that weird really seeing as Gibraltar is a British Overseas Territory. Just weird because it’s walking distance from Spain.
The highlight was probably going up The Rock in the cable car. The top of the rock is a little run down but you do get good views over Gibraltar and beyond to Africa and Spain. Of course there were monkeys too. I am not the biggest fan of monkeys so I tried to avoid them as far as possible. They were quite interested in Little Miss H’s pram, but luckily we didn’t have any food on display so they lost interest fairly quickly. A lady with an open packet of sweets in her handbag was not so lucky. That monkey will need to see a dentist.
As we were leaving Gibraltar, my mum and I had decided that we would get a stamp in our passport. Unfortunately you can only get the stamp on the way in. Ah well, we might have to go back again. Perhaps when we need a trip to Morrisons or M&S.
