Saturday dawned beautifully sunny, we got ready, had a bit of brekky & bibbed off on the bikes across the border again (and got ANOTHER stamp !!!)
Basically all of the sites to see were up on the rock, you can’t cycle and it would take too long to walk all the way up and back down so we opted for a mini-bus tour.
We struck gold with a lovely guy in his late 60’s / early 70’s who had been born in Gibraltar and who had been running these tours for the last 40 years. We locked up the bikes & hopped in with an Irish couple from Kilkenny in the front, us in the middle and three German / Dutch guys in the back (who ate snacks & chatted) whilst the guide literally threw SO much knowledge at us from the second we got into the car until the second we said goodbye (see selfie of the three of us below).
{As an aside – if I thought the drive up to Kevin’s place was a bit lairy 😳 – it was NOTHING compared to this – he kept on chatting as he motored speedily around hairpin bends, etc. and eventually I got used it it !!!}
We stopped at a few strategic photo-opportunity points e.g. The Pillars of Hercules – which marks the entrance to the Straights of Gibraltar and it was lovely & clear & we could see all the way over to Morocco !!!
OK – so let’s start with the fact there are 2 entries for Gibraltar in the Guinness Book of Records:-
1. For being the smallest colony in the world – 5km long by 1.2km wide
2. For having the shortest inter-continental flight – to Tangier – 43 miles taking less than 25 minutes
… and some other stuff he mentioned:-
3. Population of 30,000 and 15,000 additional peeps cross the border every day to come to work and Gibraltar has ZERO unemployment !!!
4. English is the official language, the pound £ is the official currency and there are red (working) telephone boxes and red post boxes (see piccie below)
5. The only place Europe to have wild monkeys is the Rock of Gibraltar – home to the Barbary Macaques – see piccies below – especially one sitting on MY HANDS (courtesy of the guide) and he called the monkey “Harry” !!! Definitely the highlight of the tour…
6. Although 78% of the population is Catholic, Gibraltar has a significant population of Muslims, Jews & Hindus
7. Gibraltar was captured for the British in 1704 during the War of Spanish Succession and Spain formally conceded it to Britain in 1713
8. The name “Gibraltar” is derived from Arabic – in the 8th century there was an Arabic military leader named Tariq ibn Ziyad and he named the rock “Mount of Tariq” – which is what Gibraltar means in Arabic
9. Below you’ll see a shot I took of a commemorative plaque that states Queen Elizabeth II & Prince Phillip came over in May 1954 & stood there looking out over Gibraltar. That was THE ONLY TIME that any British royal has EVER visited. Shame on The Royals – that’s what I say 😐
He probably told us LOADS more but that’s all I can recall at this moment…
He dropped us back & we had lunch at a lovely little place watching the world go by then a little bib around the shops (and I bought my obligatory Christmas ornament – see below) then cycled off to Ocean Village – which is a resort built around a marina with lots of cool bars & restaurants (and Dave really liked it) so we had a cocktail there… (bit of a crap photo but there you go…)
Had it not clouded over, we might have stayed for more and again – like yesterday – after we crossed the border & came back – the sun came out & it was lovely out there but La Linea (the town on THIS side of the border) is a bit run down & has none of the charm of Gibraltar so we headed back to The Van…
On the way the main street (Winston Churchill Avenue) was closed as it bisects the runway !!! And a plane was landing (see BA plane below…) This apparently happens 2 to 7 times a day – each time the road being closed for 10 minutes. They are apparently planning to build a tunnel underneath…
