The Rock. Gilbraltar.

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Sunday morning and my alarm goes off good and early. I get up and ready pretty quick. My day bag is packed, I check my directions one more time, wake John and say good bye and then I’m off.

I start with a breakfast at what has become my favorite little spot (ham sandwich with the tomato/olive oil spread, espresso and fresh squeezed oj). Then to the car park I go. Today is one of the biggest tests of my international travel experiences…driving alone in a foreign country. I can do this. I’m an intelligent person. I will be able to read road signs (that are most non-existent) by myself and in Spanish. Um…well, sort of! Let’s put it this way, I made it out of the car park and through the first three giant round abouts by myself. After that, it got hairy. By this point in the car, I had been in the car about 10 minutes, I was probably over confident and had even found an English radio station (without John I was sans iPod). Well, after going through the last round about I thought I had a ways to go prior to turning right, as it turns out, that was not the case. I ended up a couple of miles past where I needed to be. After figuring out how to turn around, which was harder than you’d think, I drove past the road again. Then couldn’t find a place to turn around. Finally…after making what I’m pretty sure was an illegal turn, I ended up back in the right direction and then drove very slow in the right lane. Bam! Found the road. I made it through the next two turns without a hitch and then screwed up again. This time it was easy to turn around and got myself back on track and then finally…the very obvious sign for the highway. Yay! Once on the highway I settled in and relaxed. I even want back to searching the radio channels. Gotta love highway driving! All in all, I think I wasted about 15 minutes getting lost. Oh well.

The drive south and a little east was quite nice. Weather was sunny and there were very few cars on the road. It took me about two and half hours to reach the beach town of La Lines de la Concepcion. This town boarders Gilbratar which is a providence of the United Kingdom. I was not able to drive my rental car into the country without a lot of extra paperwork and things, so my plan was to walk across the border. Getting off the highway and making my way into the city was nice and easy. I was only on one road and it curved around and bordered the border. I was so concerned with paying attention to the road that it wasn’t until I was right onto of the border crossing that I finally looked up and saw The Rock. It was spectacular! For the most part, everything surrounding this area is flat and then out of nowhere is this huge right jetting up into the sky!

With no trouble at all, I found parking on the street and with the help of an Italian teenager who was traveling with his parents, I learned that parking on the street was free on Sunday. Yay for small favors! I grabbed my day pack, put on a little sunscreen and was off. It was sunny and very warm, but I’d also read it can be very windy and cold at the top of the Rock. It was also cloudy right over the top of the mountain. So, I was prepared for all weather needs. As I reach closer to the boarder I found it funny how many people were leaving Gilbraltar with suitcases and things. Many were waiting to catch a bus in Spain. The whole scene was a bit entertaining. I followed the signs to cross into the country and ended up inside a building. I had my passport out all ready to show the guard and get my second stamp of the trip…to my great disappointment, not only did they not stamp my passport, but I didn’t even have to stop and how it to anyone. The guard literally saw that I had a passport in my hand and waved me through. Really?!?!?!?!

Once through to the other side, I had the unique experience of walking through the airport runway to get to all of the things on the peninsula. The entire country is small, something like 1.5 KM wide by 5 KM long. So walking it was not going to be a problem. With the way the Rock is positioned, this is the only possible location for the airport and the runway. So, in order to get to everything all cars, buses, bicyclist, walker, etc., have to walk across the runway. It was kinda fun! Once past this, you’re in the mix of all things normal to the UK including a red phone booth. Not even kidding. I couldn’t believe they had to put one in. Later in the morning I also saw a double decker red bus. Only in the UK. Haha

I was under the impression from what I’d read that walking into the center of town would be easy and getting to the cable car to up to the top would also be easy. That was not the case. They did have these helpful maps posted in places along the road, but the roads were not clearly marked (so essentially no different than Spain) and I was having trouble finding the tourist office. After walking well past it, I was finally able to find it and picked up a much better map to help me get to the right places. I decided not to pay for the guided tours that are offered by companies all over the place and go it alone. Moving at my own pace. I was off again and headed south to the cable car terminal. It was a pleasant walk. At this point I was quite happy to be under the cloud that was covering the entire area. It was keeping it quite cool. Once I made it to the terminal, I bought my ticket for the Rock and all the sites on it. There were several things to see and my plan was to be back at the car by 4:30 PM to give myself plenty of time to drive back. I did not want to fall into the danger of driving at night alone. Clearly I needed all the help I could get to make it home without getting lost. Ha!

With all of the adventurous things I’ve done over the years, things that some consider crazy, not much makes me nervous…except cable cars. I really don’t like cable cars. Why they do me in, I’ll never understand, but that they do. And this one…well this one looked like it was installed in 1795 and hadn’t been updated since. Great. Let’s just say that for me, it was a very long couple of minutes ride to the top! It’s also very windy at the Rock so the swaying of the car on the way up was not helping my situation.

Once at the top I hit up the little café. As I walked through the prepared prepackaged food areas I was hoping to stumble upon the standard UK staple…The sausage roll. To my disappointment, they were all out. Another strike! I instead got a very gross sandwich and treated myself to a Mars bar (thank you England!). This café was at the very top of the Rock and the views did not disappoint! It was absolutely incredible. I stepped out onto the observation deck and had to work to stay standing. The eastern wall of the rock is almost straight down. So as the winds come off the Mediterranean they forcefully sweep up the side of the rock and over the top. The clouds do much the same so as you stand there you have this incredible view of cloud whispers rolling over the top of the rock. I tried to capture it on camera and finally gave up. But it was quite fun to watch! With the clouds, the view out over the Mediterranean was a little foggy but the views down were amazing. At the base of the rock was a two lane road and some narrow areas of beach with perfectly turquoise waters. When you looked to the north, you saw the top point of the Rock. The rock itself was grey, almost white and had a lot of low lining bush type foliage growing on it. To the west, you could see down on the town and then out over the bay. On the other side of the bay was Spain. It was kind of a crazy site to see. All the boats coming and going to/from the Spanish port…all the fast ferry’s traveling across the Strait to the northern tip of Africa…quite the sight!

After soaking in the sites from here, I was off and onto the sites offered around the Rock. There were supposed to be several but I’m not actually sure what all I saw. This was another disappointment. I would have thought that they would have added in some signage on places and things in a better way and then mark the roads a little better in order to walk the areas. The most disappointing was how dirty the entire park was. The majority of the Rock is not a national reserve and I would have expected it to be in much better shape. However trash was littered everywhere and it didn’t even appear that anyone attempted to clean it up. In some areas you could see piles of it. With there being so much history to the Rock of Gilbraltar and with what I can only assume to be a good number of tourists, I expected to see this in better condition. So, as I walked, I was mindful to be careful. I was also mindful to watch for monkeys! There is a special breed of monkeys, tailless ones to be exact, that live only on The Rock. They are light brown and actually quite cute! I only expected to see them in one area but they were actually everywhere! I explored a couple of areas with some look out points and what seemed to be an area that used to hold military equipment. It was fun to look out into the Mediterranean and see large ships awaiting entrance into port and whatnot. I also saw part of an old wall that they have recently restored. There was not much information about it, but it was something there prior to the English in the 1700s. The actual history of Gilbraltar is fascinating! However, most of the information provided to the public while walking around only involved what happened from when the UK took power until present day. However, prior to the British, several groups through history have laid claims to the area including the Greeks with the story of Hercules. But while actually there, the information is a little limited if not skewed in one direction. Oh well, what can you do. While at the wall, I encountered a couple of smaller monkeys. I couldn’t get over how curious they were. I was trying to walk down some steps and one of them was right there and wouldn’t move out of the way for me to pass by. He just looked at me…as if I was supposed to pay a toll.

From this site I moved down the Rock and towards the south. I stopped at St Michael’s Cave. This was one site to see for sure. While outside of the cave I was distracted by a couple of people sitting near some of the monkeys. There was a man sitting in a chair and a rather large monkey sitting on the ground next to him. It looked like two buddies hanging out. It was hilarious! While I tried to take a picture of this I was surprised by my own little buddy. A younger monkey jumped off the roof of the building and used my backpack as a means to get all the way down to the ground. He literally jumped from the roof to my backpack and then down onto the ground. I was startled and jumped when it happened. He actually had quite a bit of force as he tugged on my pack! A few other tourists were laughing at my reaction. Ok, time to go into the cave!

The cave was massive and is not set up as an event space like a natural theater complete with folding plastic chairs. When you can get your eyes to move past this eye soar you see the real beauty of the space. This huge cave has several stalagmites dropping down all over the place. The layers and layers in the rock showed almost every hue in the rainbow was seeming to glow with a blue/purple the most. As I worked my way past the larger areas, I snuck my head into some of the smaller cavernous areas to see that the bottom could be endless! It was a little creepy to be in a hole in the earth (again, another strange thing that freaks me out but probably shouldn’t). I made my way out the other side and found myself standing with some other tourists and a few security staff. The security staff were helping the tourists perch a monkey on their shoulder so they could take a picture with it. I was surprised to see this and was able to distract the security officer enough to ask about a path I was told to take as a short cut to Jews’ Gate. After being pointed in the right direction, I was off. As I started down the path, I quickly realized that this was not the way to go. The path, and I should really use that term lightly, was quite difficult to walk on. It was all downhill thankfully, but it was huge chunks of rock and in my TOMS that had very little traction at this point it was not an easy go. I had to make a couple of stops to give my feet a break. I came to a road but was told not to take this road. Instead I crossed over it and when through what looked like a broken fence area and continued on the path which actually got worse. Note to self, stay on the roads or wear proper shoes to The Rock! Once down and back on paved road, I was happy. I was now in a very sunny part of the peninsula and at the southern end! Here there is a monument to Hercules. The story goes that Hercules came here and parted the two parts of land to create the peninsula and the other side/part of Spain. It was a great little lookout point. I was pretty sure my eyes were playing tricks on me though. From this area you are not that far from Africa (Morocco) however, I wasn’t sure that you’d be able to see it. It was sunny by still hazy and I kept thinking I was seeing a mountain in the distance but couldn’t really make it out. I finally walked over to the security shack and asked the guys working. Turns out, it was a mountain! They said that we were only about 14 miles from the coast of Africa and that on a clear day you can see it! I may have decided not to go to Tangier, but it was fun to have just a little hazy glimpse of it!

After giving myself a few glorious minutes in the sun and a bit of a break, I was up and moving again. This time uphill but on the paved road. I was not walking clear across the Rock to the northern end. I would also be walking through the special monkey reserve area. Ironically, I saw more monkey’s in other areas on the island than I did in the reserve. It was cute to see a couple of mommas with their babies though! The climb uphill was long and tiring. I’m definitely out of shape. This road was part way down from the top of the Rock and overlooking all of the town. The town was interesting because its all crammed into a very small space. The streets are very narrow and buildings are literally on top of each other. Along the road I saw the only remaining lime kiln which was used to produce lime which was used as white wash on buildings and disposing of bodies quickly. Gross! Ha! I then climbed back up on the north side of the Rock and was looking out over the airport and back into the Spain. This was a really fun view. Again, you have this view of how the rock jets up from the ground into the air! This was actually one of my favorite look out points. I spend quite a few minutes here taking in the sites. Then I decided to go in and see the tunnels dug by the British in the last 1700s. There are more than 70KM of tunnels dug but the general public are only allowed to enter a small portion of them. The British dug them so they could place canons and guns into the side of the rock. It was quite interesting to see how it was done. But I did not like how it was Dinsey-fied. Each little area had a display of some kind which included a British soldier of sorts and buttons you could push to play audio in several different languages. For me this just takes away from the authenticness of the area, for others I’m sure it’s very informative and interesting. I decided to only go part way into the tunnels. You could explore a good portion of them but the estimated time it took to do that was 2 hours. I was good with what I saw. And the views from the small window like openings gave me what I was hoping for!

When I left here I started back down the rock for one last stop at the Moorish castle. It was very small but quite impressive. The wall and surrounding things were built in the mid 1100s and then the tower was built in the 1300s. Although not a large scale building, it was still very impressive. The wall was very interesting and continued quite far down the side of the Rock.

From here I followed the main road down into town and ended up lost again. Yep, you guessed it, lack of road signs. After a little twisting and turning and avoiding being hit by a car, I made it to a wide staircase and then down to the main road. I of course missed the road I was looking for in the process and again walked out of the way to get back to the main road leading in/out of the country. . After finally making it back to where I needed to be, I was on my way. This time, we were held up and had to wait to cross the airport while two private jets landed. When the planes finally landed we were allowed to cross and I took this opportunity to stop and snap a few photos! The Rock from this angle was impressive. Back across and into the border crossing again. Once more, very uneventful. I pulled out my passport and they just waved me through. No stopping, nothing. This just blew my mind! Then there I was, back in Spain 5.5 hours later after leaving it. The car was still there and before I knew it, I was back on the road.

Getting back to the highway was quite easy and with no trouble at all I was on my way to Seville. The drive home was great. It was a little hairy as I neared Seville due to heavy traffic but I wasn’t in any hurry and just took my time. I was going directly to the train station to drop off the car and even once I was within the highway system around Seville I did very well. No missed turns this time! Once at the train station it was a different story. Even though I was on the correct road per the address of the rental car place, it turned out the actual return car facility was on the far side of the train station. I only had to make a few circles around to figure it out! Finally pulling in, I turned over the keys and thanked the little Renault that got us from Barcelona to Seville to Gilbraltar and back. It was a fun little car! Into a taxi I went and back to the hotel.

Walking into the hotel room was so strange. John and all of his stuff was gone. I had grown accustomed to having someone to tell stuff to and at this moment I really missed that he was now gone. I typically do a lot of traveling on my own but having started this trip with someone it was interesting to transition to being on my own. After a good shower, I headed out for a much needed dinner. I went to a recommended restaurant near the hotel and had the best meal! My love for croquettas continued but this time I also had a salad of Rocket (arugula), brie and honey drizzled on top. I don’t know if it was the simplicity of this or what, but it was amazing! They didn’t just put the brie and honey on the top but had it layered throughout the bowl. It was like having the layer of butter in the middle of your bag of popcorn at the movie theater! I was in love. I almost ordered a second salad…almost. I had a great glass of red wine and enjoyed reading my magazine as the day turned into night in Seville. I had already decided to spend an extra day in the lovely town. I needed a little more time with my new found love!

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Photos

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I had to include the photo. Seriously can't believe they had one there.

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A view of the Mediterranean from the top of The Rock!

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The peak of the Rock with the very end of the runway/airport in the background.

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You can see the clouds rolling over the top of the Rock.

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Random tourist...hanging out with his new buddy, the Monkey. This is also where the monkey jumped on my back.

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The momma and her baby

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St Michael's Cave - this is the center of the stalagmite that fell.

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The inside of St Michael's Cave. It was amazing!

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Funny monkey!

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The pillars of Hercules. Also the view from the southern end of the peninsula. This is where you can see Africa.

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In the 1700s, the Brits used these rings, which were all over the roads leading up and down the mountain, to get the canons up to the top. They put rope through them and pulled the canons up the hill.

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View from the Tunnels!

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The Lime Kaln.

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The Moorish castle

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A view of the Rock from the Spain side and where I parked my car.

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Bye bye rental! Thank you!