Day 10 – Gibraltar

After leaving Tenerife and the Canary Islands, we enjoyed another restful day at sea. By restful, I mean that we slept in and missed breakfast… again. The weather was very pleasant, just not very sunny. We tried our hands at Trivia once more, and again we were discouraged at our lack of knowledge. Oh well, I guess we won’t try out for Jeopardy any time soon. One of the featured entrees at dinner was lobster tail, so we each had one, then another one. Shipboard service is too generous for our own good!

We docked at about 9 AM on Friday at the Rock of Gibraltar. It’s only about three square miles in size, but its location at the western entrance of the Mediterranean has resulted in its development as a military strong point over the past 1000 years.

Europe and Africa are only eight miles apart at Gibraltar so whoever controls Gibraltar controls the passage between the Atlantic and Mediterranean waters.

The ancient Greeks called the two sides of the straits the Pillars of Hercules. In 711 AD, a Moorish army crossed from North Africa and took control of Gibraltar as they began the conquest of Spain for Islam. Over the next seven centuries, the Moors and the Spaniards fought for control several times. Finally, in 1462, the Spaniards recovered control.

In 1704 during the War of the Spanish Succession, a British naval force captured the town and the fortress. Gibraltar has remained in British hands ever since, in spite of many Spanish and French attempts to recapture it. The most dramatic effort was the Great Siege of 1779-83, during the American Revolution. A large force of Spanish and French ships and soldiers attempted to bombard and starve the British into surrendering. The British tunneled into solid rock for safety and built cannon emplacements to shoot down on the attacking troops.

During World War II, the tunnel system was vastly expanded and fortified by British Royal Engineers, who expected a German attack several times. That attack never came, but the Rock became a major naval and air base for the allies.

We decided to skip the ship’s tour offerings, and instead, hired a taxi for a two hour tour of the Rock. We traveled through town and out to Great Europa Point, the far eastern edge and the closest point to Africa. While there, we first encountered the Barbary Apes, tailless monkeys that are native to the area.

There are about 600 apes on Gibraltar, and they roam freely over the rock. They love tourists, so they can be a bit pesky at times.

We stopped for a tour of St. Michael’s Cave, a natural cavern within the rock. It’s beautifully illuminated and has a large underground amphitheater.

From there, we drove the length of the rock to visit the Great Siege Tunnels. Blasted into the rock by the British in 1782, the tunnels are over a mile in length, with many gun emplacement openings, ammunition storage rooms and crew staging areas. From the tunnel opening, we could look down on the airport, which separates Gibraltar from Spain. The road to Spain crosses the runway, so traffic is stopped when an airplane is landing or taking off.

Our taxi dropped us on Main Street in downtown Gibraltar. The street is closed to traffic, and is filled with shops and pubs that are very British in every respect.

We found a likely pub and had a bite to eat and a couple of beers. After lunch and a bit of window shopping, we walked back to the ship, about a kilometer or so. We sailed again at 3:30 PM, on our way to Alicante, Spain, our next port. From this point until the end of the cruise, we’ll be in a different port every day. I believe we’ll be pooped by the time we get to Rome.

That’s all for now.