Gibraltar

Our day in Gibraltar started with a heavy fog, this is the pool deck about 7.30am

We learned so much about the history of Gibraltar today, such an important strategic position and also one of the pillars of Hercules for the ancient Greeks – the other a mountain across the straight – they believed if they sailed past the pillars of Hercules, out of the Mediterranean, then they would sail off the end of the earth.

The history is fantastic – but am short on time so heres a link to History of Gibraltar

and a few quick pics…

Looking across the straights of Gibraltar you can see Africa – that land there in the fog is Morocco – its much, much closer than I thought.

Here is the rock – its only 3 square miles. There are 36 miles of tunnels within that rock, more than outside of it…

In front you can see one of the mosques and also one of the old cannons – the rock was surrounded by cannons and was literally a ‘fortress within a fortress’.

Back across the straights, more of Africa. The control of this area meant control of the Mediterranean, and combined with control of the Panama Canal meant the control of Europe – thats why its such a critical location.

One of the ‘apes of Gibraltar’ they are only little, bought here by the British and used as a warning signal in case anyone was approaching.

The Straight of Gibraltar, lots of ships going through

We did a tour of the WWII tunnels – 45 minutes and we covered less than 1% of the tunnels. They are still used today by the military, troops train in the tunnels before going to Afghanistan.

During the war there were thousands of troops in the rock – two hospitals, a bakery that produced 2,500 loaves of bread a day and huge storage areas for food, water, weapons etc.

Here we are decked out for our tour…

This is the view from ‘Jocks Balcony’, built by the scots – its a lookout over the area that joins with Spain.

The grey area is the “International Airport of Gibraltar” – one of the shortest runways in the world – we had driven across it earlier in the day as a road runs through the middle of it and when planes come in to land they just close off the road to traffic and pedestrians. We saw planes taking off while we were there.