Blogs from Gibraltar, Europe - page 4

Gibraltar 16. September 2014 Gestern besuchten wir Gibraltar. Da es immer noch Saison ist, stauten sich die Autos der Touristen kilometerlang vor der Grenze. Viele wollten mit ihren Autos direkt in die Stadt fahren. Wir parkten unseren Wagen kurz vor der Grenze in La Linea in einem Parkhaus. Von dem aus war die Grenze in etwa 15 Minuten zu Fuss zu erreichen. Da Grossbritannien (obwohl in der EU) nicht dem Schengenabkommen beigetreten ist, mussten wir unsere Ausweise beim Grenzübertritt vorzeigen. Ohne Ausweis kein Grenzübertritt. Das musste Inge, eine unserer Nachbarinnen vom Campingplatz vor ein paar Jahren erfahren, sie musste wieder umkehren, da sie ohne Ausweis angereist war. Nun wir hatten unsere dabei. In Gibraltar fahren die Autos nicht wie in Grossbritannien auf der linken, sondern wie im restlichen Europa auf der rechten Strassenseite. Die Mainstreet war ... read more

At Sea: Over night and early morning we steamed in a South Westerly direction, later on during the day we altered course and headed in a West-South-Westerly direction. During our sea day today at some stage we will cross the Greenwich Meridian, this is the line that separates the eastern and western hemispheres, such as the equator divides the northern and southern hemispheres. It runs from the North Pole to the South Pole passing through the borough of Greenwich, in London giving the line its name. We have noticed that as we head further north we are leaving the oppressive heat behind us, the temperature now is quite pleasant, in fact at night on the upper deck it can get a bit chilly. I have also included some extra photos taken in France and Barcelona to ... read more

The best vista, according to the vista guy. We rode the cable car to the top of the Rock of Gibraltar and the view is magnificent. We can see Spain, the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, Morocco, Africa, and the town of Gibraltar. It really is an amazing place. Greeting us at the top were the Barbary Apes. Reminded me of the time my brothers bought a pet monkey. We learned something new yesterday. We noticed that in Lisbon and Cadiz when we entered the port we had "red LEFT returning" navigational aides. Our boating friends will understand that this is opposite of the navigation rules we are accustomed to. We were so curious that we sent a note to the Navigation Officer asking him about this. He explained that in International Waters it is "red ... read more

We have neglected the blog for a few stop overs, this has been mainly because there has been no internet available !! We left Lagos on Thursday 8th August and spent a very pleasant day sailing to Albufeira. The marina is surrounded by holiday apartments and is a little way from the town. It must be said that If I was paying for a holiday to Albufeira I think I would be disappointed. We left there on Saturday 10th August for a short days sail across the bay to Vilamoura, which is a far more civilised place to be. We left Vilamoura late afternoon on Monday intending to have an overnight sail to Gibraltar. We made better headway than I had expected and it soon became clear that if we continued we would arrive at Gibraltar ... read more

We started out early this day as we had a 3 hour drive to Gibraltar ahead of us. Thanks to the GPS, a series of roundabouts, and a missed exit that took us about an hour out of the way, we ended up in a little country town named Las Cazebas deSan Juan that is built up on a mountain, with the church situated at the very top. Back on the autovia and headed in the right direction this time, we drove through vineyards, farmlands, cattle ranches, wind turbine farms, and peaks and valleys of the mountains. We even passed a castle, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. We spent the majority of the drive oohing and aahing at the marvelous Spanish countryside. Each time we went through a tunnel, we would come out and be ... read more