We have done some amazing awesome things this holiday but for me I think today was the highlight. I’ve always wanted to visit Gibraltar and today I got my chance. It’s a 2.5hr drive down the motorway from Seville so we did a day tour.
For those that might not know, Gibraltar is a tiny bit of Spain that Britain took in the Spanish war of succession in 1704 and signed over to Britain in perpetuity in 1713 with the treaty of Utrecht. It’s super strategic as from it you can observe and control shipping into and out of the Mediterranean Sea.
As you can imagine this is a bit of a sore point for the Spanish in general, but as the guide explained the locals on each side of the immediate border get on well and are happy with the status quo. Lots of people move across the border for work daily.
Gibraltar is a quirky and cool as I was hoping. Even though its sovereignty is controlled by the UK, it’s not the UK completely. It’s classified as a British Overseas Territory.
- Everything is in English
- But Drives on the right hand side like Spain
- Speed in Km/h like Spain
- Pay in pounds
- Mints its own coins (Still pounds /pence)
- More red phone boxes than I saw in London
It’s not an island, but to get into Gibraltar after going through customs and immigration you need to cross the airports tarmac. There is now a road tunnel under it that opened 12 months ago but foot traffic still walks across. It’s far quicker to get through the border as a pedestrian, so the tour companies walk you across and out you on a local tour bus on the Gibraltar side.
Seems most people cross on foot, or the vehicle of choice, an electric scooter. There are thousands of them. It was very cool having to wait for a plane to land before being allowed to cross the Tarmac.
We did lots of cool stuff in Gibraltar. We saw Africa, which is only about 20km away. The caves on the island are quite amazing, something they undersell a little. Gibraltar has narrow, super steep scary roads with hairpin turns and precipitous drops to one side. They say if you can drive in Gibraltar you can drive anywhere. I’m in no hurry to try it.
Monkeys…. OMFG… they warned us not to feed them or get too close, or take bags near them as if they see you opening the bags they will push you out of the way to get your stuff. We were a fair way away from the monkeys, but one ran up and jumped on Emma’s back! She didn’t freak out, but I was thinking “how the hell do I remove the monkey without it biting me or Emma..”. At that point, it was my circus and was my monkey. Luckily after about 30 seconds it just jumped off anyway.
Best bit of the day?… Annoying Emma with stupid dad jokes about the Rock. “this place rocks!” ”We need to rock on” etc
It's all about the coffee 