Morning came early on Gibraltar day. Though our itinerary stated 9:25 as our departure time, we arrived at the hotel late the night before and unanimously decided that 9:55 sounded like a better goal. By the time we loaded luggage into our car, left in the hotel’s underground garage, and we began walking toward the Spain/Gibraltar border, it was close to 10:30.
Outside our hotel in La Línea de la Concepción, Spain.
The mile-long walk from our hotel to the border featured a consistent view of the impressive Rock of Gibraltar, meaning regular breaks for taking photos. We decided to the lengthen the journey a bit more by stopping at a playground along the stroll. GeeGee and I supervised the kids while Brian made the 15-minute, round-trip walk to McDonald’s to get lunch. He came back with a variety of food: a disappointing croissant for Emmie; okay ham and cheese McCroquetas, unique to Spain; and Rodeo burgers for Brian and me, which would have been better with less special sauce.
GeeGee kept Eilidh entertained at the playground.
Posing with the McCroquetas.
Eilidh liked running with the birds adjacent to the playground.
Crossing the border was a cinch for us, but not everyone. When the two women directly in front of us presented their identification, the Spanish border agent began yelling at them that their IDs were not valid in Spain. He took them down a hallway and instructed the rest of the line to keep walking regardless of the fact that no one passing through was required to even show their passports.
Once on the street we began looking for the free shuttle that was included with our online cable car ticket purchases. Signage for the shuttle pickup was minimal, but we eventually found some adjacent shade for our 20-minute wait. The shuttle took us to the base of the cable car, where our pre-purchased ticket printouts allowed us to bypass the long line to get quickly on the cable car.
View from the cable car, roughly 1/4 of the way to the top.
We rode the cable car up the side of the Rock of Gibraltar. Our plans for the day were to ride up the side of the 426-meter tall “rock,” and then walk and see all the sights located along the way back down. I attempted to take some great footage of the views from the cable car, but we were all disappointed on our arrival to learn that I hadn’t actually managed to turn on the GoPro.
Directly out of the cable car station we ran into our first couple of free-range monkeys. The kids, especially Eilidh, were ecstatic, and we captured obligatory photos. We had read that the monkeys could be quite cheeky and, indeed, they provided some great entertainment on several occasions during our time on The Rock.
While posing for a photo with GeeGee on an old battlement, Noah, our official backpack carrier, was ambushed by a monkey who jumped up and stole a bag of candy that was tucked into one of the side pockets! Noah actually didn’t realize anything was happening, but Brian did catch it in a photo and the experience evoked gasps and giggles from surrounding tourists who witnessed the event.
The monkey snatches Noah’s candy.
Group photo from the viewpoint at the top of the rock.
Sometime later, after GeeGee made a small purchase at the restaurant/souvenir shop that sits at the top of the rock, she was leisurely walking along when a monkey ran up and snatched her bag from her hands! Crazy GeeGee yelled “Hey!” and started to chase the monkey. Luckily he didn’t go far before perching himself on a ledge overlooking a cliff to inspect her purchases.
He quickly discarded her tea towel (on the sidewalk) and the bag (over the cliff) before retreating to another ledge to investigate the magnet she had purchased. Several bite marks later, he got bored. Gee Gee got her magnet back, along with a great story!
GeeGee displays her souvenir magnet.
We continued our downhill trek stopping along the way to check out St Michael’s Cave, The Great Siege Tunnels, and a Moorish Castle. While each of these stops had interesting components, they paled in comparison to the viewpoints at the top of the rock. The walk down was steep, hot, and exhausting, but interspersed with monkeys to keep us relatively entertained.
We witnessed one monkey feeding her baby as we walked downhill.
We fed Eilidh at a couple of different points along our walk down the Rock of Gibraltar.
St. Michael’s Cave was commercialized with lots of concrete paths, music, and bright colors. Nonetheless, the stalactites were still impressive!
Noah looks at the Gibraltar, UK, and European Union flags from his perch atop Princess Caroline’s Battery.
Monkeys, Emmie, and me outside the Moorish Castle.
Eilidh understandably is a bit suspicious of the monkeys.
After we’d left the road down the hill, we walked down a ton of steps to the city center.
Once at the bottom we walked to Hotel Chocolat per the itinerary where Brian, Emmie and I enjoyed salted caramel drizzled soft-serve Jersey milk ice cream. GeeGee was the contrarian and chose Mango-Passionfruit drizzled ice cream, which she says was “fantastic” and something “she would order again.” Still starving from the walk down the rock, Gee Gee and I sent Brian back into the store to buy some salted caramel chocolates. He complied, plus came back with some extra chocolates as well. Eilidh found the strawberry crunch white chocolate to be pretty tasty.
Following our chocolate stop, we walked back to the border, completed the return trip through border control, and trudged through the long walk back to the hotel where we loaded up the car, loaded up on gas station drinks, and hit the road headed to Tarifa.
Before leaving Gibraltar, we posed with a British telephone.
Selfie on the bus ride back to Gibraltar’s “frontier” (border with Spain.)
On our arrival to Tarifa, we parked outside the city walls in a secure lot and lugged our suitcases down the narrow inner-city streets to Hostal Africa. Kids were quickly bathed and, as it was nearing 10:00 p.m., Brian set out to find some takeaway for dinner. He returned with some pizza slices and lasagna, which we planned to consume prior to retiring for the night.
Our home in Tarifa, for the next two nights.
Noah had other plans. Deeming his very large piece of ham pizza insufficient, Noah lay in his bed crying with hunger until Brian took pity on him and took him out for a second slice of pizza sometime around 11:30. I remained with Eilidh in our ground floor room while GeeGee went up to the third floor to stay with Emmie in the room belonging to Brian and the big kids.
Noah was pretty happy about his late-night pizza trip. However, Brian reported he only ate 1/2 of his ham pizza.
Spectacular scenery with my spectacular family. Emmie was right: Grandma would have been too afraid for some activities. Didn’t know about the monkeys????. Noah’s late night pizza run must be a genetic thing.