Gibraltar, without expectations

Gibraltar was not a destination but more a stop of convenience on our way through Spain 🇪🇸 to Portugal🇵🇹 . We had not heard anyone say that “you must visit Gibraltar” or that there are great things to do but we thought a stop was warranted. I remembered some history where Gibraltar 🇬🇮 played an important role being one side of the straights of Gibraltar, besides, it’s a big rock (Aka- the Rock of Gibraltar) and we like big rocks.

Once we made the decision, Terri started doing more research and discovered that there are multiple troops of monkeys living high on the rock. Now we needed to stay two nights instead of one just to go to the nature preserve and enjoy the monkeys in an unhurried fashion.

The first thing you will immediately notice is that you are definitely no longer in Spain. Gibraltar is a British territory although it is on the tip of Spain and only encompasses a couple of square miles. Everything is English: English signs, English bars, English fish and chip shops and English telephone booths…

Once we were settled into our hotel we decided to cruise through town and make our way up to a Moorish Castle on the hillside.

After a fairly strenuous uphill stair climb we arrived to discover that the castle was inside the nature park. The park ranger asked if we realized that the entrance fee to the park was 34€ each and we only had a couple of hours before the park closed, we told him that we thought it was outside the park and that we had the whole next day planned for the park. He replied that he couldn’t let us walk all that way and not see the castle, “go on in” he said, and “we will see you again tomorrow.” Awesome!

The castle was fun and offered great views along with our first sprinkling of the history of Gibraltar.

The Next morning, Rather than the long walk back up to nature preserve, we chose to take the cable car to the very top and work our way back down, it was a good decision. There are numerous sites to see inside the nature preserve.

The monkeys are scattered about the preserve and wander on their own, no fences. The government feeds them and takes care of them but they are free to roam as they wish which included jumping on me at one point. At first it was just a small one sitting on my shoulder, then a larger one unexpectedly jumped on and about knocked me over. In a matter of seconds he had unzipped my backpack and was rifling through it before a docent pushed him off with a stick….

There are also numerous natural caves in The Rock. The St Michaels cave being the largest.

There are now 34+ miles of tunnels throughout the rock. all created with the idea of defending the strait.