TolsmaFamily: Christmas in Spain

Gibraltar is the first place we have been since July 16 in which English is the official language! Gibraltar has been British since the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 but it continues to annoy Spain who would like to take control of this small but strategically located 2.5-square-mile piece of real estate. The residents of Gibraltar had opportunities to choose whether to continue to be subjects of Britain or to become Spanish in 1967 and in 2002. A vast majority of the residents voted to remain a self-governing British dependency so that is what they still are. Spain tries to make it difficult for them because of their continuing allegiance to Britain by causing a real bottle-neck at the boarder crossing (only 3/4 mile wide) and by making the phone system confusing. We avoided both by not making any calls and by parking our car in the Spanish boarder town of Linea and walking across the boarder into Gibraltar. Although it wasn't routine we asked to have our passports stamped when we crossed into Gibraltar.

The drive to Gibraltar from our resort was only about one hour, all of it along the Mediterranean coast with the mountains to the north - it was beautiful. As we rounded a corner we looked out at the Sea and there it was - the rock of Gibraltar - magnificent and unmistakable. It was another "pinch yourself" moment - were we really seeing the Rock of Gibraltar?

As I said, we continued on to Linea and parked our car. The walk to the boarder crossing was all of about 5 minutes. We each carried a backpack with us with some snacks, water and sandwiches because we planned to do some hiking.

The sky was threatening rain and we did get sprinkled on but we had jackets and hoped for the best. It was a bit windy too and since we were planning to take the cable car up to the top we hoped the wind would not close it down.

We waited a bit for the bus which would take us through town and to the cable cars. We knew we would be able to see some of Gibraltar's sites from this bus. As we rode the bus and looked out for these sites we quickly began to learn that Gibraltar's history is one of war. Memorials and monuments memorializing many wars are scattered about the town as well as remnants of fortifications that go back centuries!

Here are the cable cars that take you up the rock. We chose one-way tickets because we wanted to hike down.

The views from the cable car were spectacular!

Immediately after we got off the cable car the apes of Gibraltar - actually tailless monkeys that live on the rock - were there to greet us.
We also immediately saw signs warning us not to feed them. Their life span is about 15-20 years and they don't need 15 years to learn about tourists, what purses and bags typically contain, etc. and they are real kleptomaniacs! The fine for feeding them was 500 pounds (right now almost $1000).

We spent some time at the cafe - using restrooms, drinking some coffee, looking at the gift shop, waiting for the weather to clear - several monkeys peered through the windows. After the weather started to clear we explored the many patio lookouts associated with the cafe. The views were amazing!

Before we started our hike down I thought we should eat something - it was after noon. So, on this patio we scanned for monkeys - none were around. I got out 5 sandwiches and told the kids to eat them fast. They did, but not fast enough. When Joseph was about halfway done he was spotted! One of the monkeys came from a different level and jumped on Joseph's back trying to grab his sandwich! Joseph spun around trying to get the monkey off but really just giving her a spinning piggy back ride. The monkey grabbed his sandwich, finished it quickly and headed for Daniel who was frantically stuffing the rest of his sandwich in his mouth. As the monkey came toward Daniel he wisely just threw it at her! Here is the sandwich stealing monkey herself...

We first hiked to O'Hara's Battery. It is no longer in use and is closed down but you can see some of it through the fences and it is the highest point on the rock.

Regularly spaced along the paths are heavy iron rings attached to the rock. These were used to get the heavy armaments up the rock.

The Rock of Gibraltar is like a honeycomb it is so riddled with tunnels - natural ones and human-made. This is an entrance to a human-made tunnel.

Here we are at O'Hara's Battery - 1383 ft. high, shooting a 9.2 ins caliber 10MK gun whose shells weigh 380 lbs and shoot over 25,000 yards!

From here we hiked down toward St. Michael's Cave.

St. Michael's Cave is very cool and has a long, long history. Two Neanderthal skulls have been found on Gibraltar and in St. Michael's Cave a neolithic bowl was discovered. So, it is not unlikely that these caves were first explored by the Neanderthals some 40,000 years ago. The cave was known by the ancient Greeks, Roman and Phoenicians and was believed to be the Gates of Hades. Other stories suggest that ancient peoples believed that the cave was bottomless or perhaps contained an underwater passage to Africa - some suggesting that this is how the monkeys came to Gibraltar. More recently the cave was prepared for use as an emergency hospital during WWII but was never used. The part of the cave that was prepared to serve as a hospital was turned into a concert hall after WWII.

We learned that the Rock of Gibraltar has a really interesting geological history too! It consists of limestone that is older than the sandstone it sits on. Scientists believe that it was flipped up on top of the young sandstone - perhaps when the continents split and/or when the Atlantic spilled in to form the Mediterranean Sea.

From St. Michael's Cave we hiked to the Ape's Den - really just abandoned buildings and patios where tour mini-buses stop to feed the apes. They hang out there expecting a handout. We have lots of pictures of the apes - we were all really taken by them!

Joseph couldn't get enough of the apes. He wanted to take one home and still talks about having a monkey as a pet!

Joseph was playing a game of dropsy with these two little babies. They were so cute! They would drop their palm branch, Joseph would pick it up and hand it to them, they would grad his finger and let the branch drop and they would repeat this over and over until the two of them (the two monkeys) started wrestling. The mama kept a close eye on their game!

This is all the closer Ellen dared to get.

After reluctantly leaving the Ape's Den we continued our hike toward the Great Siege Tunnels. This elaborate series of tunnels was begun by the English during the Spanish and French siege of 1779 to 1783. They used gunpowder and hammers - sometimes inserting wood pieces, wetting them and letting the expanding wet wood help create cracks in the limestone - to make these tunnels. They placed four huge guns on the north side of the rock and drove the French off. These tunnels were expanded during WWII when 30 more miles of tunnels were blasted out.

On the way we got some great views of the Atlantic and Mediterranian coasts and of the narrow, sandy istmus that connects the Rock of Gibralter to the mainland.

First the Atlantic coast of Gibraltar.

The airstrip you can see extending into both bodies of water was built from the rock and soil that was removed when the tunnel systems were built. There is a road that runs right through the runways. Traffic is stopped 14 times each week so planes can land and take off.