3 nights in Gibraltar - Day 3 and travel home :(

 Tuesday 24th February

This morning we got up, showered and had breakfast before we packed and relaxed in our room until check out time.

We stored our bag and headed along Main Street and then down towards the harbour area.

We stopped to have lunch at Rendezvous where we both had omelettes and a mix of bread and garlic bread with cheese.

These were really big so we were too full for dessert so we paid our bill and went to the Commonwealth garden for a while. It was nice being able to sit in the sun.

After a little while we stopped in Casemates Square for dessert. Rob had a chocolate fudge and I had a chocolate, nutella with nut sundae.

These were very good!

We then got a drink at O’Reillys next to our hotel where we continued to enjoy the sunshine.

We collected our bag and started our walk back to the airport at about 1615.

We actually arrived a few mins early so had to wait until they opened check in – the airport appears to literally open and close when they have flights landing and taking off!

We were quickly through security and got some duty free before heading into the lounge.

We got a nice view of the runway and the rock! The inbound flight arrived on time and a short while later we started boarding.

This was completed by 1830 and we were in the air by 1900 and due to arrive in Heathrow by 2050.

We were provided our biscuits and water in flight, I might also have taken a can of Coke Zero with me from the lounge!

I read another chapter and a half of Jennifer’s book, I am now officially over half way though 

We landed at 2025 (early!), we got through passport control quickly; we were at the luggage belt at 2040, luckily our bag only took 10 mins this time so we headed out to the short stay car park.

Annoyingly the M3 was closed at Farnborough so we had to take a detour; luckily we hadn’t pushed our charging to the limit…

We stopped at Amesbury and topped up the car, and arrived home just after 2315.

3 nights in Gibraltar - Day 2

Monday 23rd February

This morning we had breakfast in the hotel again as it was included in our booking (I don’t think I mentioned that yesterday.)

We headed out for a walk along Main Street and got ourselves a drink before sitting in Casemates Square for a little while, it was nice being able to sit outside and not feel cold.

Our tour left at 1230 from the bus station, which was only a few minutes walk. We arrived and had our passes scanned and were put on a bus with 2 German girls and 17 Hungarians.

Despite the website stating that all tours are in English the Hungarian tour guide tried to insist the tour was done in Hungarian!

Luckily the company refused so we departed and the commentary was in English, and the Hungarian guide provided a translation for his group.

The first stop on the tour is Europa Point for the 100 ton gun and the lighthouse, this was a fairly brief stop but long enough to take photos. You can also get to Europa Point on the public buses if you wanted to spend more time in the area.

We then drove up some steep hills and along some roads that were very close to the edge to reach our next stop which was St Michael’s cave, we saw the light show and then a few of the Barbary apes.

This was quite similar to Wookey Hole if you have been (although not the apes!) We managed to avoid having anything stolen by the apes.

We were taken to another viewing point and then got dropped off to see the WW2 siege tunnels.

This effectively ended our tour as they tell you online that if you want to see the tunnels then you have to make your own way back to town.

We had a good look around the tunnels before moving on.

Then we decided to go to the Skywalk, this was a steep uphill walk and despite it only being 17 degrees it was warm in the sun!

It was about 1 mile in distance but google maps suggested it would take us 39 mins (our normal pace for a mile is about 15 – 20 mins!)

I think in the end it took us about 30 mins but we were definitely feeling the effort of the hill.

We reached the skywalk and then took one of the trails (which felt somewhat dangerous along the way) back to St Michael’s cave where we went to the cafe and got muffins and drinks.

As we were leaving the café we saw one of the apes steal an ice cream from one of the other tourists. They do warn you about this, but the apes come right inside and grab stuff off of people!

We then walked down the hill a bit further to the Windsor suspension bridge. I was not keen on this bridge but I made my way across.

We carried on down the hill, again taking some slightly dodgy paths, the steps were definitely non-standard heights and had no safety rails; our health and safety people would not be happy!

Eventually we reached the bottom and made our way back to Main Street; by this point we had done around 20,000 steps and we had skipped lunch so we decided to get dinner.

We selected Latinos and both got burgers, these were good, but definitely not as good as yesterday’s lunch.

We then decided to get more ice cream for dessert; Rob had the same flavours as yesterday and I had Belgian chocolate with Strawberries and cream.

We were tired by this point so went back to the hotel and watched tv :)

Having done the tour I would suggest that it might actually be better to take a trip with one of the many taxis rather than the bigger bus tour that we went on.

The little taxis can get over to the skywalk and so it is probably possible to do less walking than we did and see as many of the sights. It might require a little bit of negotiation to get the best price though!