23rd July – Gibraltar
Spent the day here looking around and it’s very quaint and British. The access is a hoot; the airport runway (military as well as civilian; Gib is still an important military base) crosses the road so ti’s the only road I’ve ever been on where you are stopped for a plane crossing! Very British; with all the brand names present but cosily along the side of the historic buildings – the Moorish fort being the oldest building on the Rock. We wanted to go up to the lookout at the Pillars of Hercules but the queue for the cable car was so long (cruise ships and tourism make up the vast bulk of the income of the outpost; along with fuel bunkering) that we gave up on that and wandered the town instead. Reminers of French and British history all around; with the graveyard of a few sorry souls who survived the Battle of Trafalgar and then died of their wounds in Gibraltar probably the most poignant. Great English bookshop; yay for the Illiad amongst other treasures … a Women’s Weekly Baking (hysterical laughter but oh so practical; I have no cookbooks on board and baking is something you really can’t wing too much). Crazy one way road systems (the only way to deal with the narrow streets); lots of buses (confusingly two different companies; which seems crazy in such a small place) and a main drag that is mostly booze shops (Duty Free!!) and big English brands. Note to anyone who’s interested; there’s a kitchenware shop that sells the commercial Nespresso capsules! A whole pound cheaper than we bought them on Amazon; and though they only stock four varieties two of them were the ones we use! Who would have thought … we had a good laugh.
The Unintentional Mariner 