Gibraltar
It is only a 5 minute walk to the causeway which we cross and then we are at the checkpoint. No stamps in our passports - just a quick glance and we are waved through. There are many cars driving slowly across, as well as people walking their dogs and families with children ambling slowly across. I look more carefully at where I'm going. "I think this looks like a runway we are crossing," I said to my husband. We stand for a second and look around. Sure enough, the road and footpath are at right angles to the main runway and we are halfway across!
Main Street
Continuing down Winston Churchill Drive, we walk through an opening and find ourselves in a typical English market square with a red phone box on the corner and a pub opposite! We walk straight across the square and now we are at one end of what appears to be the main street called, yes, you guessed it, Main Street! We walk the full length and it is just like walking down the High Street anywhere in Britain, all the same names and stores. Boots, Marks and Spencers, Monsoon, Mothercare, ...... We are hungry and find a pub advertising brunch in their conservatory. The fried eggs on toast are the best I've had since leaving home!
Around Gibraltar
We walk around to the Cable Car station but it's too windy at the top for it to operate. The tour guides are hovering around looking for business so we pay for a minibus ride to the top. Before we are dropped at St Michael's Cave, our guide tells us to make sure we shut all the doors and windows in the bus before we get out. "The apes get in and make themselves at home," he tells us. As we come to a halt, we see the Barbary Apes everywhere. Swinging on tree branches, sitting on fences, chairs, car bonnets and window sills and scavenging any piece of rubbish they can find. We disappear into St Michael's Cave. I thought this was just a little grotto but it is actually really large. There are plenty of stalactites and stalagmites and at the bottom is an enormous auditorium where concerts and functions are held.
The Great Seige Tunnels
Next stop are the Great Seige Tunnels, a series of galleries cut through the rock by the British during the Great Seige with Spain to put in gun emplacements. The view across the water is magnificent. The harbour is busy with ships of the British navy, tankers and cargo ships as well as pleasure boats. A young American chap dressed immaculately in a dark suit and bright purple tie had caught the van to the top with us. He had a pull-along cabin bag with him as he intended catching a plane later in the day. The noise of his pull-along going clacketty-clack on the rock floor in these underground galleries echoed all around us!
Queen Charlotte's Battery
Our last stop is the old Moorish castle. The Moors held Gibraltar until the Spanish took it over in 1462. However it fell to the British during the war of the Spanish succession in 1704 and has been held by the British ever since. The perfect fortress, Gibraltar guards the western entrance to the Mediterranean Sea. Built in 1727, Queen Charlotte's Battery sits on top of the Moorish castle and provides a fine vantage point looking across the harbour.
Back at the bottom, we finish the day at the same pub with a good roast dinner washed down with a very nice Tipperary cider!
