Tuesday 23/5/2017.
Neen came at 10ish and we headed to a pharmacy so we could get drops for her eyes. Today was Gibraltar day. We saw a pink Smartcar on our way, but it was a pale one, not hot pink like ours. It was cold and foggy in Gibraltar so we ended up putting our jumpers on under our dresses. You can tell its owned by the British! The border guards only glanced at our passports. Gibraltar drivers are unbelievable! We eventually found somewhere to park, which was right at the base for the cable cars. We had chips and lemonade in a bar across the road. It’s so weird. Everything is British, yet they still drive on the right and a lot of the locals speak Spanish. Annoyingly, we forgot our British wallets, and they charged more to transfer into Euros.
Rocking up
We got the cable car to the top of the Rock and went to the souvenir shop to look for a pin badge for our travel rucksack. We managed to find one with an ape and the Rock on. There were apes on the railings as you headed into the gift shop. One was eating a pack of biscuits (we hoped they mugged a tourist for them), one had crumbs all over their face, and one kept posing for photos. It was so foggy you couldn’t see any of the view from the top. Just walls and apes.
Cave dwellers
We headed down through the nature reserve to St Michael’s cave. One taxi driver got an ape to sit on people for photos but only those who went up in the taxi were allowed photos. The ape had other ideas and jumped on to Cat’s shoulders. Lynx had to ask the taxi driver to coax the ape off. It smelled the strawberry perfume in her hair and decided that was a more attractive prospect than posing with paying guests.
The caves were stunning, and one area was huge. They use it as a concert venue as the acoustics are really good. There were coloured floodlights, which made the caves look lovely, but made taking photos difficult. The phone captured them better than the camera. The stalactites were impressive. They’re definitely well worth a visit.
Tunnel vision
The next place on our list were the Great Siege Tunnels. You can read our Atlas Obscura article about them here. The Siege lasted from 1779-1783 and the caves were also used during WW2. They were definitely worth a visit. We love caves and visit as many as we can. Cinta and Neen only came halfway, as Cinta’s claustrophobic and Neen couldn’t be arsed to walk all the down for more caves. We wanted to see the Ape’s Den, so Neen and Cinta took a different route down, which apparently had fewer marauding apes. The Ape’s Den was just a wooden shelter with fruit and two apes under it. Not quite the great den of apes we were expecting.
Exploring Gibraltar
We wanted to look at the Moorish Castle, so Neen and Cinta returned to the bar we were in before. We walked down multiple steps and came across a wild lizard. It was very exciting. The castle was just a tower with one floor and the roof, but it was still cool to see a Moorish castle. SatNav took us through the town centre to get to the pub. It was like walking through a regular British High Street with M&S, Debenhams, Peacocks, Top Shop, etc.
We stopped at what we thought was a little park, but it turned out to be Trafalgar Cemetery. You can read our Atlas Obscura article about it here. The name is a bit misleading because only two of the people who are buried here fought in the Battle of Trafalgar. The majority of internments are people who died from yellow fever.
We met back at the pub, had more chips then headed back to Cinta’s, to write our blog, upload our photos and do some stretches. Gibraltar was nice but nothing special. If we wanted to go somewhere cold and miserable, we would have stayed at home.
Read Day 2.
Read Day 4.