Gibraltar, UK

Our last full day in Spain we spent, well in the UK. That’s right, we drove from Seville and after a stop off in Arcos de la Frontera to Gibraltar. Gibraltar or Gib (how the locals call it) was weird from the start. First, it is blatantly visible that Spain is bitter and refuses to acknowledge that Gib belongs to the UK. There are no signs pointing to Gib on the highway until you get to the exit for it and then you must immediately turn once you spot it. Secondly, Spain refuses you a direct road to the border, making the only way to get to Gib by forcing cars to make a u-turn on an abandoned looking road to nowhere. Also Spanish taxis seemed to be either required to drop off patrons at the border, where droves of people with wheelie suitcases were disrupting the flow of traffic. The other weird thing is that there is a border check between two EU countries, but you can fly between them and not be checked.

Gibraltar is weird. It is very British, yet not quite British enough to really be British. After the border we drove across the airport runway to get to the city. From the Europa Point where trade was once controlled, you can see Africa nearly all the ships passing through the strait. Once the most important point for controlling the straight is now an oddly abandoned spot in the territory. It has great for view and is the closest we came to Africa (we had intended to spend a day in Morocco before Spain completely screwed us over). There are very strong winds at the Europa Point which we assumed were blowing off the water up to the rock.

We attempted to drive up to the rock but arrived just as it was closing and never got to see the famous monkeys. But we did go for a stroll in the town and had a good dinner at Café Rojo, that was a welcomed break from tapas y jamon. We had our first Banoffee which was really yummy! If you, like we were, are not yet enlightened as to what Banoffee is please pay close attention. It is a pie consisting of the delectable combination of Banana and Toffee. We suggest you fly to your nearest UK territory and find one for yourself.