Gibraltar; Saturday, 20 August, 2005

As I could see it from my hotel room, the first stop of the morning really had to be the cable car. The car takes you up to almost the very top of the rock. At the top station there are viewing platforms that give stunning views over Gibraltar, Spain and Morocco. You can also borrow an electronic guide system which tells you some of the history of the rock, as well as of the region. You can also find out about the Barbary Apes that live on the top of the rock and the strange weather systems that occur (and experience) around the rock. After spending some time there (and after nearly loosing my bag to an ape!) I wandered down the hill to the spectacular St Michael's Cave.

The rock is riddled with caves and tunnels, many naturally formed. St Michael's Cave contains hundreds of stalactites and stalagmites that create stunning displays. The heart of the cave is a massive cavern, originally fitted out during W.W.II as a hospital; it now houses an auditorium for staging opera, dance and theatre.

From there it's a long, down hill, walk back along the length of the rock, past the Apes den, to the Great Siege Tunnels. These were built during the great siege of the late 18th Century, by the forerunners of the Royal Engineers, to help defend the rock from attack. They now form part of over 50Km of passages and tunnels that cover the rock, more inside the rock than there are roads on the outside!

In the same area is the Military Heritage Centre which gives a small amount of background on the history of the military on the rock, as well as containing a monument for the memory of all those who lost their lives defending the rock. From here it's a short walk further down the hill to the Gibraltar - a city under siege exhibition. This is a small collection of waxworks in a building almost destroyed during the great siege. It tells the story of what the conditions were like for the residents of the rock during the siege.

A bit further down is the entrance to the World war two tunnels which were built to defend the rock against the threat of invasion during the early years of W.W.II. The tunnels are massive and cover a large area. So large in fact that you re-emerge back up the hill by the Military history centre.

After re-wandering back down the rock past the entrance to the W.W.II tunnels and the Moorish castle, I continued down into town for a bite to eat before catching the bus to the North of the airport and the international boarder with Spain. Just across the border is the town of La Línea De La Concepción. If they ever remove the border, the only way you would be able to tell where you were would be by the increased number of Spanish number plates and the difference in pavements, apart from that Gibraltar and Spain effectively run into each other.

As is common in Southern Spain all the shops and museums were closed when I arrived for the afternoon, re-opening at 5. So I went for a wander around the town. By 5:30 none of the museums had re-opened! Either the stereotype of the relaxed approach to time is right or, more likely; they were remaining closed as a service was being held in Madrid at the time for 17 soldiers who had been killed earlier in the week in Afghanistan. With nothing much else to do in the very South of Spain, I wandered back through the boarder (past the massive Spanish flag flying at half-mast) and into Gibraltar to get some dinner.