May 14th

Awoke and ready to tackle the rock!! That is The Rock of Gibraltar!

We again 'crossed the border'. Leaving la Linea de la Concepcion, Spain; through passport control (where we literally get our passport stamped each time, but only on the Spanish side); and then onto British soil. So if an English person flies from Britain to Gibraltar, do they have to have a passport??? Hmmm… We did see a plane take off, as the airstrip is right at the border.  Anyway, I digress.

We caught a bus that took us to a cable car in the heart of the city. Gibraltar is 30,000 in population. From here we hiked to the Europa Point Lighthouse – two miles. Lighthouse doesn't appear to be operational any longer. Pretty amazing, we can see Spain, in the distance we can make out Africa, and we were standing on British ground.  Now we caught a local bus back to cable car area, and this time we get on the cable car up to near the top of Gibraltar – as far up as we can go. It's very impressive. The town side is sloped, but the ocean side is a sheer cliff. Great views all around. The waters of the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean are calm with nice fluffy clouds in the sky. Gorgeous day. There are some exhibits here, including WWII tunnels and caves, as well as a nature preserve. But the tunnels are closed, and nature preserve costs extra. So we just meandered about and took it all in. We did see some “apes”, they are Barbary macaques. They are wild and the only monkeys in all of Europe. We took the cable car back down: then the bus back to border; and returned to our place. Plan to go back out for a late dinner – the Spanish way!!!