August 8. Gibraltar Walk with a Stroller

Today marks a month since we came here. The time goes by so fast. In two days we will be going home. Wish these summer getaways could last longer.

As the title states, we walked into Gibraltar today. We did not walk all the way from Seville. But when we drove into the neighboring town San Roque we saw that traffic in the direction of Gibraltar was pretty bad so we parked and walked 3.5km. It is the first country we entered on foot.

Gibraltar  is a large rock that projects from Iberian peninsula far into Mediterranean sea. On a good day you can see Morocco from it. It is also a nice entry point to monitor sea traffic in and out of the Mediterranean. This location resulted in much hand changing throughout its history. It was been a British territory for about 250 years.

The town consists of the very populated lower town and national park/fortress on the rock. The main street is Main Street, as one would expect. Almost everything you see is stores. It is like a souvenir shopping center of the worlds. Crowds of people squeeze by to get from one point to the next. Brits are the predominant representative here. And if us Americans tend to be on a plumper side, Brits we saw seemed way ahead of us.

There is clearly very interesting history here. There are tunnels everywhere, some protective walls, and other military structures but even though maps are available at every step, it is one single kind of map, poorly drawn and not to scale. There are no street signs to guide you in any way. You probably would have to be walked around by a local to make any sense of it.

We stopped by for lunch at Angry Friar. The food was OK but if you check out the bathroom or try to get your check from a waitress you would know why he was angry. :)

The most important site was the fortress on the rock. We headed down to the cable car and waited for almost an hour and a half for our turn. There were guys who were offering van rides to the people in line claiming that cable car tickets are 20 pounds and you have to wait in line, while they will take you around right now for only 22. Actually cablecar ride alone was about 10 pounds roundtrip so they were lying. If you want to add other sites to it like St. Michael’s cave, Moorish castle, tunnels, and fortifications that they clearly cannot take you to, then, yes, it would be 20.

So we finally got up the mountain. The views were pretty cool. Today was overcast so we could not see Africa, but it was still very neat. The top is pretty narrow so in some places you are able to see the sea on both sides.

Gibraltar’s special attraction are Barbary monkeys. They are everywhere and are very cute. They are used to being fed by, at this point mostly by van drivers (because everyone else gets plenty of warnings) so they are starting to become more of the pests.

There are remains of fortifications everywhere on the top of the mountain and if you enjoy this kind on scenery in conjunction with pretty scary heights and broken staircases or stone paths along the edge this place is for you. It was exciting and Georgia really liked it. Probably would not get enough liability insurance to operate in US though. However it is very tough to negotiate with the stroller.

We could only get to St. Michael’s cave and then had to take turns going inside because Isabella went to sleep and there are lots of stairs inside. Inside they had a very impressive multi-row natural theater with a central stalagmite column. One of the prettiest I saw. In addition, there was a cross section of a stalactite on display that showed two ice age periods. That was very impressive.

The other attractions we would not be able to even reach from the mountain – we would have to walk back to town and then walk up from the different side of the mountain.

The map of the walk between these locations just shows kilometers – and even those are not correct. So they basically fleece tourists. They could have mentioned that when they sold the ticket to us because I asked if it is OK to go with the stroller. It is frustrating that after 250 years of running the place they could not install decent ramps and clean up broken pieces of military action. But this place is designed for the people who want their check mark – not for any who are interested in coming back. And so check mark we got!

Interesting Variation

 

On the positive side, :) here is another food item coming, we saw pastries in a window that resembled kibinai. We got one. It is a local specialty – it stuffed with lamb, potatoes, onions, and carrots. The dough is bit different – it is more chewy. Very nice!!

Before we drove back we stopped on the beach on the Spanish side and kids got the chance to splash around a bit. Even though it is definitely Mediterranean and bay at that, the water was still pretty cold.

Back in town kids declared that they are hungry and so we headed out to get them something to eat at 9:30pm. I guess they’ve  made their switch to Spanish time already :)