Gibraltar

When we woke this morning, the lights of southern Spain were slowly scrolling past the cabin window, heralding our arrival in Gibraltar – one of the more curious British territories that still somehow exist around the world – supported in this case seemingly only by tourism trade. The big question is why anybody would bother stopping here (I’ll get to that later).

We finally drew-up alongside the port in Gibraltar – that sits between Spain and Morocco – at about 8:30am – which scuppered the various shore excursions planned for the vast majority that weren’t about to walk anywhere if they could fight over filing onto tour busses, or taxis (and then complain about it afterwards). Looking out of the ship windows, we saw low cloud hanging over “The Rock”, and began joking with one another about the complaints that were probably being written.

We decided to hang back a bit, and let the majority of the complainers leave the boat first. I snuck off for breakfast in the (hopefully deserted) buffet restaurant – and ran straight into lots of them.

Twenty minutes later I was back in our cabin, having necked a coffee and scoffed some yoghurt and cereals after being surrounded by quite the most humourous army of bitter, agitated, furious people you can possibly imagine (if you can imagine a lot, imagine more).

The woman on the table to the left was ripping into her long suffering husband about some three times divorced blonde “hussy” that had been swimming in one of the pools the day before. A couple to my right were sitting opposite each other in absolute silence while trying to win the longest face competition (there’s stiff competition for it on-board).

So yes – back in the cabin we grabbed a few things, and headed for the gang-planks to disembark for a few hours – passing endless long lines waiting for buses and taxis. The walk from the port into town took about fifteen minutes – dodging people as we went. For quite some time we happily walked in the road – which was apparently “cheating” judging by the faces of those we overtook along the way.

It’s worth noting – we visited Gibraltar twenty five years ago. We did the tourist stuff then – and there’s really only two things of note to do – explore the caves dug during the war, and go up “the rock” to visit the monkeys. They’re not the sort of thing you might ever do again, so we didn’t – especially as the rock was covered in cloud. Instead we walked the length of the “Main Street” several times.

The major attraction of the “Main Street” in Gibraltar has historically been lower prices on alcohol, tobacco, perfume and aftershave. I’m not quite sure what has happened, but the majority of items we looked at were either the same price or more expensive than at home. Also, granted it was a rainy day, but we both noticed the same thing; we could have been transported to any city street in the UK, and wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference – apart from perhaps the cities at home being better looked after, and having more chains, and more choice.

Gibraltar has become a very strange place. Perhaps it always was – it’s hard to say. When we visited years ago I told my other half it was like “Swindon with canons in the street” (I had visited before), and that still holds true to a certain extent – although I only spotted two canons these days. A bald headed man covered in tattoos, wearing a national front vest was taking a photo of them as we passed by.

We ended up picking up some scent for our daughters at the same price as at home, mostly to have *something* to take back for them.

By late morning – having bought a fridge magnet, and posted some postcards (we’ve sent postcards from every destination), we were back on the boat.

It’s heading towards 2pm at the time of writing – I’m half tempted to go and watch the last shore-goers lumbering back aboard with their supposedly tax free goods (that were marked up by almost exactly the same as the tax). I wonder how long it will take them to figure that out?

We depart within the hour – then set off towards home. It will take the better part of two days to round Portugal, then head north past Spain, France and into the English Channel.

Suddenly thoughts are turning to home, and the pieces we’ll have to pick up when we get there.