This was a busy, busy day. But it was a pretty good day. We left early to hop on the bus and drove about 3 hours to Gibraltar.
Gibraltar is a British Territory on the southern end of Spain at the entrance of the Mediterranean. It has an area of 2.3 square miles (6.0 km2) and a northern border with the Province of Cádiz in Andalusia, Spain. The Rock of Gibraltar is the major landmark of the region. The country Gibraltar has almost 30,000 people.
Gibraltar became British 1704 during the War of the Spanish Succession. The territory was subsequently ceded to Britain “in perpetuity” under the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. It was an important base for the Royal Navy. Spain wants Gibraltar back, but the British refuse to give it up. So they are at a stalemate.
We walked across the boarder into Gibraltar. One of the most relaxed boarder crossings I have ever done. Then we had to walk into town. To get to town from the boarder, you have to cross the runway for the airport. Our tour guide told us to stick together and go into town. Two girls on our tour decided to change money first and got left behind when an airplane decided to take off for England. We had to wait 15 mins for the runway to be re-opened to get the girls back.
For lunch we had fish and chips. That was pretty much the only options that you had – also everyone had a strong British accent. It was bizarre after hearing a spanish accent for the past 10 days. After lunch e hopped onto our tour up the Rock of Gibraltar. The Rock of Gibraltar is huge. It used to be called one of the pillars of Hercules. I would call it more of a mountain then a rock.
On top of the Rock, you can see on a clear day the moroccan coastline. It was pretty cool to see africa. After that we went to St. Michael’s Cave. One note – the bus we took – it drove super close to the edge, so all of us were a little worried that we would fly off the edge. The cave was a limestone cave, apparently the rock has lots of these that are craved out by the rain – or were made to be offensive in world war II. This cave had been turned into a concert hall.
After the cave we drop toward the Gilbraltar Apes. They are the smallest apes in the world and the only Apes in Europe. They looked like monkeys and were fairly used to humans. They tries to steal food out of peoples pockets and purses. They looked like they could attack if they thought you were trying to get in the way of food.
After the monkeys it was time to jump back on our bus and drive to Seville. Seville is one of the prettiest cities in Spain. We checked into our hotel and then quickly went down to the heart of Seville. We had a quick walking tour with our tour guide, then settled into have a dinner of drinks and tapas. The first bar we went to, the servers spoke only spanish. They took your order and then wrote down the price in front of you. They served an interesting drink that was red wine and sprite. At the first bar I didn’t know what to order, so decided to be adventurous. I flirted with with bartender and he brought me a plate of pork cheek and carrots. I gave him a tip and got to try to get it into the ‘Basketball net’ above the bar. I missed.
The next place we went to we went to order pork cheek stew. it was very tender. It was great. Again with more wine. The last place has lots of brands of sherry and was apparently the birthplace of sherry, but the food was not that good.
From there I found myself a gelato and headed home for a night of rest.
