A day in Gibraltar

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Adding to my list of countries that I've visited we set out on a 3 hour drive from Spain to Gibraltar. After making it through the crazy passport control que Gaynor and I headed to Morrisons to stock up on tasty English products you can't get in Spain.

After offloading all our stuff in the car we wandered on down to Casemates Square where the first sign that greeted me said 'Glassblowing'. I couldn't believe my good fortune! Here I am on a mission to buy one glass item for my collection from each country I go to and the first shop we come to is happy to oblige.

Not only did Gibraltar Crystal have a beautiful array of hand blown glassware and ornaments they also have the most STUNNING dichroic glass jewellery I have ever seen. Now that's saying something. But sadly the prices matched the quality so I bought an interesting bottle stopper instead. After browsing the store you step through into the glass studio where you can watch two master glass blowers and their asistants at work. They also have a display explaining some of the techniques and a brief history of the craft.

After an invigorating coffee and the purchase of cheap alcohol (Napoleon Delux Brandy Reserve V.S.O.P for only 3.95 english pounds and I'm talking a whole bottle!) Gaynor headed off to wander around the beautiful botanical gardens and small wild animal park. I, however, headed up to the upper rock of Gibraltar on the suprisingly stable cable car. Despite being a cloudy day (so I couldn't see Africa) the views were quite lovely. I could see across to Spain and see all of the ships moored at weird angles waiting to enter Gibraltar Harbour.

As I headed down to St Michael's Cave I encountered a fairly large group of Barbary Apes. (These 'Apes' aren't actually apes at all. They're the only tailless monkeys in the world. They believe they lost their tails because of the cold climate even though it doesn't go below zero degrees celcius here.) You can get quite close to them and they'll barely deign to glance in your direction. Though heaven help you if you're carrying any food or a plastic bag (they associate these with food too). I saw a woman later in the day who had her plastic bag torn from her and a box of something nicked, never to be seen again. The babies were my favourites though. They won't sit still for five seconds and seem to love biting each other and climbing over the railings. One young girl was terrified that they were going to fall to their deaths.

After a 15 minute walk down the rock I entered St Michael's Cave. I've seen some beautiful caves in Australia which are much larger than St Michael's but the formations in this cave were equally as stunning. They've used different colour lighting so some of them appear very forboding. Some of the stalactites hang in what look like flowing sheets. Others reach all the way down to the stalagmites and create large pillars. What I loved most about these caves though was the stage. Yes, a STAGE in the middle of an ancient cave! Classical music is playing so you can hear how fantastic the acoustics are. (Though it does make you wonder how many of the natural formations they had to destroy in order to BUILD the stage and seating). The caves only take about half an hour to go around though which leaves plenty of time for more monkey buisness further down the walking track.

Just before the middle cable car base station is another conglomeration of cheeky monkeys. This time one of them hitched a lift on the roof of a passing van! What made me sad was to see a baby inspecting a broken shard of glass. And all too soon it was time to meet Gaynor and have some dinner (mine was a delicious moroccan lamb tiguine and Gaynors was swordfish) after which we joined the incredibly slow que back OUT of Gibraltar and into Spain.

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Photos

Stalactites
In St Michael's Cave

Barbary Apes
Which aren't actually apes!

Comments

[dragonlady]

Coloured caves
I see what you mean about the coloured lights making things look forboding, especially the red. Quite spooky and evil. Mind you, I have never yet seen a set of caves which didn't have something unique and worth seeing, no matter what size they were, and we've seen quite a few over the years, haven't we? The baby monkeys are very cute and look nice and soft (not the teeth, though). I love the glassblowers sign - a full size statue, no less. It's a shame you couldn't afford the dichroic jewellery you liked. I hope you got a few shots of some to remember it. Hope the rest of Spain is as good as what you've seen so far. Enjoy!

[Snap Shot Stacey]

Sadly I didn't take any pictures. It was in a shop so I doubt they would have allowed me to anyway.