Zee Germans and Gibraltar

The only coverage of the Olympics we receive on our television is in German.  The tourists on the bus are German.  The people walking their dog on the boardwalk in front of us yell "come" in German.  Perhaps this explains why I woke Jim from his sleep last night by speaking in very loud and seemingly fluent German.

We've learned to take every second or third day to relax.  Mostly though, it's to rest our weary feet and shins.  We have been walking about 16km every day - something that we don't typically achieve back at home in the snow and cold.  We're just not used to it yet.  So rest is necessary.

But not today!  Today, we boarded a bus, or two, and made our way to the famous rock of Gibraltar.  That's right, the highly fought over piece of real estate that has passed hands between the Moors, the Spanish, the French, and finally the British (not necessarily in that order).  When we researched it there didn't seem to be a ton of luring reviews.  One guy said it was just a bunch of monkeys and a big rock.  So when we bought our bus tickets we assumed two hours of exploration would be plenty.

The bus trip was only an hour and half and by 2:30 in the afternoon we had arrived.  Following a small group of (German) tourists we crossed the Gibraltar airstrip and made our way through the Old Town. Fish and chips were on all the menus and pubs lined the narrow streets.  The Brits were everywhere and for a moment we forgot that Spain was a mere couple hundred meters behind us!

We strolled through a few of the alleys and climbed flight after flight of stone stairs in the hopes of getting up onto the rock.  We eventually found our way to the Moorish castle that sat about half way up.  For 50 pence we could walk around and look at the sights and for 10 pounds each we could walk inside of the sights for a closer look.  50 pence it was.

While everyone else seemed to be walking down the mountain of white rock we, for some reason, chose to walk up it.  I was sweltering in the heat and struggling to catch my breath.  Jim charged on like a champ.  We broke the rules and walked through a series of tunnels that took us inside the rock.  Created by thirteen British soldiers over the course of six weeks, these tunnels were used to attack oncoming troops with cannons that peeked out through small openings in the side of the cliffs.  It was cool.

Eventually making our way back down to the town and over to the Spanish side of things, we got a brief behind the  scenes look at a zircus (circus) complete with elephants and seals!!  We had missed the 4:30 bus and wound up taking the 7:00 one, allowing us a little extra time to stroll along the boardwalk as the sun set behind the monolithic Gibraltar.  

Gibraltar!

View from half way up the rock

One of the cannons inside the tunnels.

The Zircus comes to Gibraltar