We decided to take a short Monday to Friday break in April to escape the rainy UK weather and Gibraltar seemed to fit the bill. The British have been on the Rock since 1704 when it was captured by an Anglo-Dutch fleet in the War of Spanish Succession and was ceded to the British in the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht. Spanish Monarchs have made many unsuccessful attempts to regain Gibraltar over the years since, such as in the Great Siege of 1779 to 1783 when the Spanish and French joined forces.
Gibraltar is located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula on the Bay of Gibraltar near the exit of the Mediterranean Sea into the Atlantic Ocean. This makes it a strategically important location for the military, hence the miles of tunnels in the Rock dug by the military, firstly during the Great Siege and secondly during the Second World War.
Gibraltar is approximately 5 km long and 1.25 km wide so we felt that our Monday to Friday visit would give us sufficient time to see all of the delights that Gibraltar has to offer, including the infamous Macaque monkeys.
After arriving at our hotel, The Rock, by lunchtime, we found that we were just over the road from the Alameda Botanical Gardens which were established in 1816 by Lieutenant-Governor Sir George Don who was the first commander in Gibraltar since 1704 to dedicate significant resources to public well-being.
The Botanicals Gardens are small but worth a visit and contain a little wildlife conservation park with some interesting birds and monkeys.
The original layout of the Gardens remains intact and a series of guns and commemorative busts attest to the garden’s age.
The main entrance to the Botanical Gardens is next to the cable car that takes 6 minutes to transport passengers to the top of the Rock which is a Nature Reserve and includes most of the attractions in Gibraltar, such as the Apes Den, the WWII Tunnels, the Great Siege Tunnels and Moorish Castle to name a few. In addition to these attractions and the main walking paths, there are also some walking trails on the Nature Reserve map which are for those who want a more strenuous walk.
The cable car can get very busy particularly when cruise ships are in the Spanish ports nearby Gibraltar, so booking online in advance for both the cable car and nature reserve are beneficial.
Therefore we decided that for day 2, we would book in advance and board the cable car early in the morning for a one-way ride up and a walk through the nature reserve, visiting the attractions, on the way down. We didn’t realise we would be walking 7 miles that day, which was for the most part either down or uphill.
We returned to the Rock Hotel for dinner and as the sun set, we could see the lights of Spain across the Bay of Gibraltar and, if we looked left, the lights of Tangier, Morocco, which is on the northern shore of the African continent and only a 79km ferry ride away.
Copyright words and pictures: John Cruse 2024