Blogs from Gibraltar, Europe - page 2

Monkeys, Fish and Chips or limestone caves. Gibraltar has it all and more Ake has for many years been thinking about visiting Gibraltar. Emma however is less keen on visiting the British little chunk of territory in the southeast corner of the Iberian Peninsula. This year we weren't able to coordinate our plans for Easter because our respective schedules mismatched. So Emma went one way and Ake went to Gibraltar and some other places nearby. Here comes the first blog entry from Ake's trip. Gibraltar is a so called British Oversees Territory, which basically means that its British but it is nowhere near Britain. Gibraltar borders to Spain in the north and with the Mediterranean Sea surrounding all other sides. With this location you don't need to know much about international relations to realize that Spain ... read more

Since Lisbon the ports have been daily. While other passengers headed off to Seville, ML and I enjoyed a spa special. I have never felt to pampered in my life. Full body exfoliation and massage, and facial. After, I lounged in the thermal suite reading and used the thermal pool (like a giant hot jacuzzi). I could have had a steam bath or sauna but I was much too relaxed to try. I had visited Gibraltar last fall so some of the touring stops were repeats but…. This time we saw the rock from tip to toe. Visited the siege caves built when the Spanish tried to starve the British off the rock. It didn’t work. There are massive fortifications around the rock to protect it from invasion and guard the entrance to the Med. While ... read more

Tuesday, November 8 Today we visited Gibraltar. The bus rode along the coast past the playgrounds of the sun bunnies and the rich and famous. We passed a toney club where the elite meet and greet and Julio Inglasious appears every August. George Clooney owns a home here and Sean Connery plays golf. The King of Saudi Arabia built a replica of the White House here and left it to his son Prince Faud. One of Faud's pleasures is shopping but he hates crowds so the upscale shopping center stays open at night just for him. The day was chilly but the sky is severe clear blue and the sun is warming. After about two hours we crossed the boarded from Spain and the boarder into Gibraltar, looked both ways before driving across the airport runway, ... read more

A day trip to Gibraltar, this is another experience I had once when I was just around 12 years old. It was in February, and with those monkeys, it was as if it was yesterday. We spent the night in Algeciras, just on the other side of the "Rock", where 50 euros give you a huge room in a Mercure. Gibraltar, and land mass is pretty small on Gibraltar, so accommodation comes at a premium. It's actually like three times the price you will find in Algeciras. They have even brought in a cruiseship and are using it as a permanent hotel...for more than 200 euros a night! /we had a short 20 minutes queues in the morning to get the car into Gibraltar, truly easy process. I was expecting huge queues to get back to ... read more

Welcome to Gibraltar. Yes, we are back again. Yesterday we discussed the effect of canceling Tunis from our itinerary. There is a second change in that we cannot get to Corsica from Cartagena overnight, so instead they returned to Gibraltar. We are very disappointed about losing this second port, but this is the last adjustment due to North Africa unrest. So today we get to take the excursion we really had wanted instead of the dolphins. We got up and discovered it was raining this morning. We went up to the Horizon Court for breakfast and then headed off to our meeting point. Our tour was called a little later than scheduled, but we didn’t have anything else planned today so a few minutes late wasn’t a problem. When we got outside about 9:45, it was ... read more