Gibraltar

We didn't get to our hotel in Gibraltar until nearly 2am, due to our long drive from Granada and being held up at the Spain-Gibraltar border for over an hour. Apparently Spain's National Police were doing a work slow down, like a strike, in order to pressure the government to pay them better. This in consequence made cars crawl through the normally fast border incredibly slowly.

I got bored waiting so long, so I tried to take a picture of the Rock from our car:

Gibraltar is one of the southernmost points of the Iberian Peninsula, but is not a part of Spain. Rather, it is a territory of the United Kingdom and has an almost entirely British population. Gibraltar was ceded to Great Britain in 1713 under the Treaty of Utrecht, but Spain still asserts a claim to the territory. Until the last decade or two, Spain made crossing the border into Gibraltar difficult, even going so far as to close the border in 1969 (leading to many Spanish workers of Gibraltar losing their jobs). However, with the UK and Spain both in the European Union now, the tensions have largely cooled. Gibraltar is very small, covering only about 6.5 square kilometers, and has historically been a very strategic place to have militarily, being located at the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea and so close to Africa.

If you didn't already know where Gibraltar is, you can look at the map below:

Gibraltar is a strange little town. It's interesting being in Spain, then all of a sudden crossing this border into this tiny little peninsula where everything is British. They use British electrical sockets (different from the rest of Europe), they use the English and Gibraltarian Pound as currency, and a large part of people living there are of British descent as well. One of the most interesting things to me was to get into Gibraltar, you need to drive across the airport's runway: the territory is so small that building the airport across the main road was the only option. Just imagine that instead of being stopped for a train crossing, you're in a car stopped for an airplane crossing!

Crossing the airport:

The most famous part of Gibraltar, of course, is The Rock:

We took a cable car up to the top to get a view of the surrounding area:





Even though it was really hot and humid outside, the view was amazing:









All over The Rock are wild apes, which are very friendly. There were signs everywhere though, warning not to give them food or to touch them:









After a quick lunch (which, in keeping with my experiences with British food was not very good), we started hiking down The Rock to St. Michael's Cave, which is about half way down:



The cave even has an auditorium built into it, which hosts concerts:

After hiking half way down, we were tired and it was hot, so we picked up the cable car to take us the rest of the way. The mountain that's just visible in the distance is part of the Rif, and in Morocco:



After getting back to the bottom of The Rock, we walked around the town for a little while:

There was a church:



And a little square, complete with British and Gibraltarian flags:

After getting dinner at our hotel, we watched the sunset behind the Spanish coastline. (Gibraltar is in the foreground, but the distant coastline is part of Spain.):