Well, it was not the day we had hoped for. Yes, we
made it inside the rock. Where it was raining, just like everywhere else today. Gigi, you can stop laughing now.
I am sure this is a much more interesting visit in sunny weather. We tried to imagine what it was like during the Great Siege, when people had to live here as well as defend their tip of the continent. With all the puddles and dripping water through the limestone, accompanied by rousing English marching music and speaking dioramas (“Halt! Who goes there?!”), we figure we got our full-effect visit.
Here is a picture through one of the cannon embrasures, aimed right at the airport for Gibraltar. Notice the highway on the left that crosses the runways.
The Gibraltar apes (really Barbary Macaques) are all over this three mile by one mile rock. And fearless, jumping all over the tour vans and tourists.
This one stayed in the tree.
We also saw the southernmost point of the European continent.
That’s Tangiers, Morrocco behind us, sort of visible through the clouds.
We were supposed to take a cable car up the mountainside, but it was too windy, so we had to drive up. We could not go to the top, as only the cable car can reach that viewpoint. Frankly with the wind driven rain, I doubt if we could have seen a thing this morning.
And then some confusion happened. The rain began to pour in buckets. Tom and Denny stopped by the bathrooms, while Kathi and I continued on down 25 yards to the turn off for the overflow parking, where our bus #19 was. Denny and Tom got lost, missed the turn off, and continued walking down the hill. Spmewhere far below, they eventually flagged down another bus, #18, boarded and went on ahead. While we waited for them back at the parking area, looked in the bathrooms, made international phone calls, etc etc.
Everyone has blamed everyone else (the driver for not moving the bus to where the guide told us, the guide for telling us he would, the guys for not paying attention to where they got off the bus, the phone company because the texts and phone messages took 30 minutes to be delivered).
We made it back to the ship right about the time the rain let up. We can see blue skies now, although it is still windy.
So yeah, the whole day was about right for a Friday the 13th.