THE ROCK OF GIBRALTAR

Today, we arrived at our first port-of-call, Gibraltar.

Despite it being the first ‘day-off’ since starting the voyage, I still set the alarm for 7:30am because we were due to arrive at 8am, and we had plans…

The plan was to walk up to the top of the rock and back again without the aid of any public transport, shuttle buses, taxis or cable car.

This would all need to be completed in time for us to be back at the ship by 3:30pm, ready for sailaway at 4pm.

After a leisurely breakfast, then, we got our stuff together and headed for the gangway. The walk into the town isn’t too far – about 20 minutes. From here, we identified the most likely route up towards the Moorish Temple, that would be the point at which we would entered the nature reserve. This wasn’t quite as straightforward as we’d expected, although after a couple of false starts leading us to dead ends, we eventually found our way onto the flights of steps that would take us where we wanted to go; helpfully signposted ‘Upper Rock Nature Reserve’.

The last time I undertook a similar venture was way back on an early cruise, when a ‘walking ticket’ cost me the princely sum of £2. ‘Walking Tickets’ are no longer available; it’s all a single priced ticket, giving access to all the various attractions, for £18 each. After shelling out £36 for access, we were about to take a look at the Moorish Castle when a family of Germans, who had followed us up the hill asked if we could help them out with their tickets.

It turns out that only card payments would be accepted, no cash. Since they only had euros and no cards, Tracey checked the exchange rate on her phone and agreed to purchase their tickets for them (2x£18 plus one at £12 for their daughter), in exchange for 55 euros. It’s not like we won’t have a use for the euros, and as Tracey said afterwards; that was her good deed for the day.

Once we’d taken a look at the Moorish Castle, we proceeded to follow various tracks and roads on our way up the side of the hill.

Eventually, we arrived at the visitors centre at the top of the cable car, where we took some photos of the extensive views, and then walked the ridge road to the ‘Sky Walk’, a glass-floored viewing platform, offering further views.

After this, the ‘Mediterranean Steps’ took us up to the remains of another small temple, and gun battery, before heading to St Michael’s Cave, entrance to all of which were covered by our £18 wristbands.

The cave, with its light show, was impressive as always, but I was watching the time closely. We had plenty of time, though; it was 1:30pm, which meant we had 2 hours to get back down to the town and the port… no problems.

Our descent was pleasant and not rushed. We passed several remains of gun batteries, and passed under the cable car. There is a direct route down, following a steep set of steps, but in the end, we opted for the gentler descent… I think ‘the steps’ are gong to have to be done on some future visit.

Needless to say, we were back on the ship at just after 3pm. We headed straight for the Lido deck, where they have a help-yourself ice cream dispenser, and I was able to order a large, cold beer. A brief stop in the lounge on Deck 5 enabled us to top up with small ‘afternoon tea’ sandwiches and a chocolate chip cookie (and a further glass of beer) before heading back to our cabin to watch as we left the port.

We enjoyed Gibraltar and I’m very satisfied that we managed to achieve our daily objective. Next stop Syracuse…