After much hype, today was the day of the day-trip to Gibraltar. The line to get across the border from Spain took far longer than the 40 minute drive from where we are staying.
No matter how many photos you see of the place, none of them can quite capture the sheer size of 'The Rock.' Not only is it just a huge shining white beacon at the mouth of the Mediterranean, it has a decidedly different feel from the Spanish mainland. The streets are narrower, architecture follows more of an English style (whatever that means) and every square inch of available real estate is used for either a building or sidewalk.
Probably the highlight of the day was the Upper Rock Nature Reserve which also included some of the most dicey driving of the whole trip. Going up a 30 degree incline, inches away from a cliff that is hundreds of feet tall is certainly an interesting sensation to say the least. Wild Barbary Macaques roam the reserve freely and are very playful (and sometimes just a little bit devious) around tourists who tend to crowd around them as they sit on the side of the road, minding their own business. At one point, one adventurous ape jumped on the back of a tourist down the road from us and seemed to get caught in her hair. Rather than panic as any normal person would do, the woman calmly shook the monkey off her back and went about her business as if nothing had happened.
After finishing up with the macaques, we went about the rest of our tour through the reserve, stopping at St. Michael's Cave, The Siege Tunnels, Moorish Tower and Grand Casemates Square where we saw glassblowers making wine glasses. All were of significance to the visit as a whole but could not really compare with the monkeys on the rock.
