Rock of Gibraltar part 1

Posted on by Lea Ann Reynolds
The Rock of Gibraltar

What a long day! But well worth it. We were up and in a taxi by 6:30 am. I haven’t been up before 8 am since I retired! With that being said, we don’t usually go to bed until almost midnight. So it was pretty early. Chuck scheduled a tour for us to see the rock of Gibraltar. We have passed through the Gibraltar strait during 5 transatlantic cruises and have yet to see it. The cruise ship usually passes through around midnight to 3 am. We stayed up a couple of times to see it and it was so foggy each time that it was a bust. We learned our lesson. Don’t even try! We learned so much today that it was well worth the trip. 


The tour we were on had 3 languages, Spanish, English and French. We listened to each many times during the trip to Gibraltar but once we changed to a smaller group for English only to go up to the rock, it was much better. The tour guide did the best he could, English was just not his strong point. We just had to listen more intently. 

This post will be in 2 parts. There is just so much that I cant get it into one nights posting and we want to tell you all about it.

Looking across the Gibraltar strait
The first thing we learned about Gibraltar is that its a British Overseas Territory and it’s located at the tip of the Iberian Peninsula, which is the southwest corner of Europe. It also borders Spain and only took us about an hour to drive from Benalmadena. There are 30,000 residents in Gibraltar. All on 2.6 square miles. Yes, that’s correct. This is true evidence of people being stacked on top of each other. And the traffic was horrible. This is also in part because 1,000’s of Spaniards crossing the border daily for work. 

In the 1700’s, Spain was captured by Dutch forces and surrendered to Great Britain. In World War II it was the base for the Royal Navy to control entrance and exits through the Mediterranean sea through the Gibraltar strait. The distance between it is 8 miles wide. We could see straight across to Morocco on the continent of Africa. 

The currency is Gibraltar British Pound Sterling meaning, you can use the pounds here in Gibraltar but you cant in any other countries that are part of the United Kingdom. They did accept Euros and we believe this is because the are so close to Spain and have so many workers from Spain as well as having a huge tourism industry.  Chuck went to the ATM to get 100 Euros but instead it gave him Pounds although it said it would. The bank wouldn’t change it so we had to get another exchange from Pounds to Euros because there’s nothing in Gibraltar that we would be spending 100 pounds on. We have yet to figure out how much our USA bank has charged us for both transactions.  

Cathedral of St. Mary the Crowned
Its a very small island so it didn’t take long to walk from one end of the island to another. After we had some delicious English coffee we walked around the Cathedral of St. Mary the Crowned.

The bell tower of the cathedral

It is built on the site of a mosque but was badly damaged during the great siege. It was converted to a Roman catholic cathedral in the 1400’s. There are multiple religions here to include Christians, Muslims, Jewish and Hindu with Christians being the largest of the population. 


Part of the government buildings as part of the residence, only across the street
An exciting part of this adventure was to see the changing of the guard at the governors residence called the Convent.

Governors residence a.k.a. The Convent

It has been the governors residence since the mid 1700’s. It is called the Convent because it was once a convent for Franciscan friars. At the entrance, where the guard stands, there is a large picture of the queen just inside the doorway.

A cannon with a wire stick figure of a soldier.

Not sure why but my camera didn’t capture the picture like I thought.  Every hour, the changing of the guard takes place.

Posted guard at the Convent

I’ll try to post the video in tomorrows post. I need to shorten it a little. It’s too large. It was a pretty cool experience.


Headstones at the Trafalgar cemetery
We stopped and visited the Trafalgar cemetery. In 1805 the British royal navy fought against the French and Spanish navies during the war of the Third Coalition. Led by Admiral Lord Nelson, the British won this war, although the Admiral was killed before the battle ended.

One stone that could be read of a very young sailor. Most were too worn to read

This battle was fought entirely from ships so those that were killed during the battle were buried at sea while those that died of their injuries after the war were buried here.   

A nice garden area for sitting and reflecting by the cemetery

From some of the stones in the cemetery that we could read, these sailors were in their 20’s when they were killed. So young.


American War Memorial
We also stopped by the American war memorial. It was built into the main city wall in 1932 to commemorate the achievements of the US Navy and the Royal Navy during the first world war. I am including all the plaque memorials along the wall. If you would like to read them, just click on the picture, it should enlarge full size. Well worth reading!

Plaques as memorials along the wall

Plaques as memorials along the wall

Plaques as memorials along the wall

Plaques as memorials along the wall

Front side of memorial from Main street
The second part of our trip takes place at and inside the Rock of Gibraltar to include the caves and the macaques monkeys. I’l write about this tomorrow so be sure to come back and read more.

May God bless you always!

Chuck & Lea Ann

6 thoughts on “Rock of Gibraltar part 1”

  3. Love all the pictures, and I'm learning so much. You had amazing clouds in the shots at Gibraltar. Beautiful. So now that you have seen Trafalgar, you need to definitely go to Trafalgar Square in London! There is a statue of Admiral Nelson. Not many people get to see both! 🙂

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  6. Love all the pictures, and I'm learning so much. You had amazing clouds in the shots at Gibraltar. Beautiful. So now that you have seen Trafalgar, you need to definitely go to Trafalgar Square in London! There is a statue of Admiral Nelson. Not many people get to see both! 🙂

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