 |
| Cable Car to Top of the Rock |
Today we "discovered" the Rock of Gibraltar. It was
not quite what I had expected, but still very interesting. It's really not a
rock at all, as much as a small mountain.
 |
| At the "Top of the Rock" |
 |
| The Rock of Gibraltar |
To save time we did a shore excursion from the ship instead of
our usual go on our own. That got us a bus ride directly to the Rock and the tickets for the cable car up to
the top. Not the top you would expect from the insurance advertising, but with
good views of that. And the rock has many caves throughout it, which served as
shelter for soldiers over the years. Gibraltar is a British Territory at the
southern tip of Spain.
 |
| with young one |
 |
| Barbary Macaque |
On the rock, the other notable feature is a colony of Barbary
Macaques, the only remaining native European monkey breed. They appear rather
docile, but have a reputation of taking anything they can grab. The ones we saw
at the top of the rock seemed rather tame and not very interested in the
people. Unless they were hoping for a food handout.
The other notable feature of the area as seen from the Rock is
the Gibraltar airport. It has a rather short runway which is partly built on
fill over the water, and has a city street across the runway. The stop light
turns red when a plane is landing or taking off.
 |
| Karen on shopping street |
 |
| Gate in old wall |
From the Rock, we walked through the city back to where we caught
the tender to the ship. The main shopping street is a pedestrian mall and has
the usual collection of fancy stores and souvenir shops. Dick made a major
purchase of a Gibraltar baseball cap.
As we sailed from Gibraltar, there were more good views of the
Rock. Then it was south around the very southern tip of Spain and Europe. We
could see a town at what was probably that point, likely Tanla. As the day
ended, we sailed NW toward the southwest point of Portugal into the night on
our way to Lisbon.
No comments:
Post a Comment