Rock of Gibraltar ...

 

Oh the memories that were made on the Rock of Gibraltar.  This little piece of rock in the ocean is a part of the British territory.  It borders Spain and has a whole bunch of crazy monkeys on top.  We had to go visit just for that alone!  But oh what an adventure it turned out to be.  We got there and parked on the Spain side and after showing our passport, getting it stamped we walked over to the English side.  Immediately the signs were in English, there were double-decker buses and fish and chip signs everywhere.  Funny how quickly a change of border can change everything.

 

We took the tram to the top of the mountain and just figured we could walk down to enjoy the scenery and take in the fun monkeys.  The tram ride up was fun, with amazing views back into Spain and of the mountain of Gibraltar.  Immediately we got out of the tram and encountered a monkey.  It was crazy.  It just ran right past us.  We were all a little hesitant after that.  The signs told us not to show our teeth to the monkeys so the kids would hardly talk to each other for fear of showing their teeth.  They actually were just not supposed to "bear" their teeth at them, not just talking showing teeth but they were quite serious about obeying the rules.

 

We got to see some beautiful scenery, an airplane take off and land on the short runway and lots of monkeys!  But then we started walking down the mountain and it all went "downhill".  The maps were horrible and the mountain was steep.  It took us WAY longer than we thought it would to get down, we took a few wrong turns and we ended up walking between 3-5 miles. It would have just been easier to take the silly tram back down the mountain.  The kids were such good sports, the adults maybe not so good :).  I was grouchy, exhausted and hot by the time we got down.  Once we got down to the city, we enjoyed walking down the main street of Gibraltar and taking in the sites.  We also enjoyed our fish and chips England style, so yummy!

 

All in all we made some fun memories, but we would certainly do it differently if we had the chance to go back.