Thursday October 9, 2014

Headed out of Algeciras while it was still dark, and followed the cycle route for about 4 kms.

We then had to go on the motorway again – I was just beginning to panic, when Ralf brought us of the motorway and we went the rural route through the hills. We saw so many storks in one field I had to look up what a \”flock\” of storks were called and it is a muster.

There was a good steep hill to climb and I actually had to get off, a roadie coming up behind me asked if I was o.k.

When we left Algeciras this morning Gibraltar seemed so close, but we had a devil of a job actually getting there. We seemed to be going in circles at one point, but we eventually found La Linea de la Concepcion, a grubby border/port town. Once we were in La Linea finding the border to Gibraltar was relatively easy.

We followed the foot passengers on the dedicated cycle lane, I had my passport in my hand and Ralf tagged along behind me. Before we knew it we were in Gibraltar, again with no formal border checks.

We cycled over the runway of the airport, yes I did say we cycled across the runway, with the cars, and foot passengers. There are traffic lights stopping you crossing when a plane is landing!!

We found the hotel easily and got settled in quickly. We decided not to waste too much time and headed for the downtown core.

We weren’t going to go up to the Rock, because you had to pay 10 pound each. After we had a second lunch, and had walked the length and breadth of the downtown, we decided to head upwards to get a better view of the Town.

When we got to the entrance of the Rock National Park, we discovered you could pay 50p each just to walk the Park, but not get into any of the sites. One pound was worth the view and to get to see the monkeys.

The macaque monkeys were probably brought into Gibraltar by the Moors and they have stayed here and are monitored by the National Park. As soon as a bus or car pass by they hurtle up the rock and onto the car or bus. They practically ignored us as we took photos of them grooming their babies and each other.

We ate a pub dinner and then wandered down the main street to have ice-cream. We chatted to the sales lady, who was from La Rocque, a small town, near the border. She said there was about 8,000 Spaniards working in Gibraltar that made the daily crossing. She told us that the British do not want to work in the service industry, but for the Spaniards “Work is work”. She gave us quite a bit of insight into Gibraltar and its neighbours.

We both found Gibraltar to be a bit of an odd juxtaposition of British and Spanish. The majority of the servers are Spanish, but there is definitely a very Britishness about the place. Marks & Spencers, British Home Stores, Nat West Bank etc. Lots of pubs and English pub food available.

What did surprise us was the very large Jewish population. There are four active synagogues. The largest of the synagogues, is usually open to the public, however, it is Succoth at the moment and was closed to the public.

There is also a smaller Muslim community mainly from Morocco, with one mosque.

Apparently Gibraltar is a very tolerant and multi-cultural society.

I am glad we visited it, but wouldn’t come back.