“This route requires crossing an International Border” Google Maps told us when I keyed in that I wanted to go to Gibraltar from our hotel. I guess that is so now – considering Great Britain has now left the EU! So off we went, passports in hand to visit “the Rock”. A short 30 minute drive and then 30 minutes in a line to go through customs (both Spanish and British) and we arrived! We as normally happens, selected the wrong customs line – we pick the one with nothing to declare where once we got in the line we noticed that everyone from GBZ picked the one that said “items to declare”. We found out why – that line splits into two – declare or nothing to declare and ours was just one line… However our timing was good on the other hand as the truck behind us conked out in line about 5 minutes after he arrived and created a bit of a traffic jam! We got our passports stamped for leaving the EU however Britain did not stamp them – they just pushed us through after looking at our smiling mugs! I must admit, today was a challenging day for Andrew driving, Gibraltar is small and thus the roads are narrow and small. We have a smaller car but it is not his car so it takes some getting used to as to how narrow a street you can go through. Google Maps does not help much either – they just tell you that you can go somewhere and then I look up and oh wow – that is narrow! Well, this is the 2nd time this has happened – the 1st time was in Trudela when we were trying to find a store and we drove along some roads we had previously walked on and then today was no different – some narrow one way roads! Time to ditch the car and walk! We lucked out and found a parking lot for a hotel that had a nice open accessible parking spot, paid for the parking (as it was private) and off we went! Checked out tourist information – they gave me a map but were not much help as they said “everything here has stairs, you can go to the cave but you cannot drive up the Rock – why don’t you go swim with the dolphins?”, so I thanked him, bought my fridge magnet and we were out of there! We walked down main street which was closed to cars and did some window (and perhaps in a store) shopping and stopped for a bite to eat and sat outside and watch the world go by! We then planned our attack for Gibraltar – to drive to the Cable Car terminal to take a picture (I read it had a view from there) and then around to the point where the lighthouse is located. Well, we were able to get to the lighthouse and see some different things on the way such as experience one VERY SMALL one way tunnel (where pedestrians take priority) which opened up onto a beach area with a beautiful pool (Camp Bay)! We eventually got to Europa Point where there is quite a nice lighthouse facility, a beautiful mosque and a cool breeze! Also here is the University of Gibraltar – very small but beautiful location! We then drove around the other side of the peninsula, which includes about an kilometre long tunnel under the “Rock” portion where the “rock face” is located. Coming around into the northern part of Gibraltar, there is a LOT of construction of high rise buildings going on – which is interesting as the traffic is already really challenging – bringing a few thousand more people to live there will make this place nuts! I presume they are going to set up a better border facility too – it looked pretty thrown together. One of the highlights of the trip to Gibraltar for me was crossing the runway – which you do about 500 metres after getting through customs. It is light controlled so that could also back customs up too now I think of it! This is the 3rd time in my life I have driven or been driven across a active runway – I have done it now in Dutch Harbour, Alaska; Wick, Scotland; and Gibraltar, Great Britain! There might be a 4th… So back to Algeciras we drove. At that time we decided that we were so tired from our escapades in Gibraltar that we would decide in the morning whether we would drive to Tarifa to catch the fast ferry to Tangier for the day.
