Gibraltar is the overseas territory of Great Britain in the southern part of the Pyrenee Peninsula, purged by strong winds for thousands of years and surviving numerous wars and clashes. Now, in the world of globalization and modern technologies, we have a great opportunity to visit where the ships of the Phoenicians and Carthaginians stood a few centuries ago, and from the top of the Gibraltar cliff to see the shores of Africa (The video is just visible :)).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9EBXFJHRCC
More recently, it was difficult to get here because of visa restrictions, but now the situation has changed for the better.
Visa
Without issuing a national visa to Gibraltar, persons who have: there are:
– multiple British visas, valid for at least six months;
– multiple Schengen visas of category C (the minimum visa duration – at least 7 days at the time of leaving Gibraltar).
Also, citizens of the Russian Federation can enter the territory of Gibraltar without registration of an additional visa – as part of a one -day tour organized by Spanish tour operators. That is, if you bought a tour to Gibraltar and enter the bus as part of a group of tourists from the territory of Spain, then even your single short -term Schengen visa will work.
Such tours usually start from Seville or Malaga, the largest cities in the south of Spain.
How to get
Gibraltar has a direct message with Spain, Great Britain and Morocco.
You can get to the city from Spain, renting a car. But in Gibraltar itself, it is not very convenient to move on vehicles, since the streets are narrow, the terrain is hilly, and the entrance to the rock is prohibited by a car with foreign numbers.
I considered it convenient to buy a bus from Malaga in advance (there are direct flights from Aeroflot and S7 between Moscow and Malaya). Bus Company website: Venta.avanzabus.com.
A bus with comfortable armchairs and air conditioning. When buying a ticket online, you can choose places. One -way ticket costs 15 euros.
Flights 4 times a day, I chose the earliest at 7:00 in the morning. From the bus station, we drove towards Gibraltar, nap for 3 hours and at 10:00 arrived at the La-Lanea de la-Consepsion station (Spanish La Línea de la Concepción). It is before her that you need to take a ticket, and then walk 700 meters to the border post. If there is no crowd of elderly tourists from China, then you will go through control very quickly and almost immediately find yourself on the take-off and landing strip of Gibraltar Airport, which is, in fact, right on the border (Spain and Great Britain are still arguing, whose territory it is).
We had to stand for about 10 minutes with the barrier with office clerks on mopeds, taxi drivers and the same group of Chinese pensioners, until the British Airways aircraft rose in the direction of London or Manchester.
In Gibraltar, the symbols of Great Britain are thrown into the eyes: red telephone boards, two-story buses, a police uniform with black and white checkers.
What to do
Gibraltar is a very small city. One full day is enough for you to satisfy your tourist needs, two – to do it in a very measured mode, and there will still be time for shopping. Since you are on the territory of duty -free trade, many things in boutiques are cheaper than in the same Spain or England. I was not at all interested in shopping during the trip, so the main street was passed by a quick step.
My gaze was fixed to the top of the Gibraltar monumental cliff. You can climb there on a serpentine (if you want to train your legs and back, lose an extra hour and a half of time and a couple of kilograms of fluid from the body) or on a funicular. The cable car offers different ticket options:
- one way – 17 euros;
- back and forth-20 euros;
- Boat-Continuous + entrance to the territory of the national park-30 euros.
There are discounts for children, students and pensioners.
Objects of the National Park are all kinds of caves and exhibitions. I would not advise you to skip them. Since we got to Gibraltar, it is stupid to save on such entertainment.
Gibraltar is the only place in Europe where semi -wild monkeys – magotes live in the natural conditions of wildlife. According to local belief, Gibraltar will be British as long as one monkey is alive.
They are not very aggressive, but you need to monitor bags, smartphones, glasses and children. Special observers look after the monkeys, a special GPS sensor is implanted in each individual, which monitors the location. There are about 200 of them in total and, they say, each has its own name.
Monkeys will accompany you almost everywhere.
Photos at the top are incredible, especially with a wide -angle lens.
In cloudless weather, you can see Africa.
Next to large -caliber guns, you can imagine how they fell from them during the First and Second World Wars, how the cores whistled in the far in 1727, when Charlotte’s battery gave a volleys along the Spaniards and the French.
We climbed onto the battery of O’Hara – the highest point on the rock. Its 9.2-inch guns have a range of 29,000 yards-it is enough to block the spill to Africa with fire.
Having examined the batteries, go to the caves. Some of them are converted into a museum, some in a concert hall with multi -colored lighting, in others it is simply interesting to observe unusual geometry and rock patterns.
Very struck the suspension bridge. We spent about 30 minutes on it, shooting photos and videos from all kinds of angles for cargo vessels and screaming gulls. The species are so fascinating that you forget about the fear of heights, even though the bridge is decently swaying.
You can go down from the cliff. The main thing is to watch carefully so that the cobblestone does not fall on top. Still, the monkeys jump there …
In conclusion
Gibraltar is definitely the place on which you need to spend one day of your life. Make a lot of colorful photographs, touch history, absorb the energy of the place and move on: to Spain, England, Morocco … It was to this African kingdom that I was heading.
Next to Gibraltar is the town of Algeciras (Algeciras). From there, ferries go to Morocco daily. Going down from the cliff, we at the same bus station La-Linea got on a bus to Alkheisiras (20 minutes on the way) and spent the night in the hotel closest to the port.
Hotels in Gibraltar itself are more expensive than hotels in the nearest Spanish towns, therefore, if there is an task to save, then it is worth considering.
Ferries towards Morocco go almost every hour in the daytime. The schedule can be found on the company’s website.
And read my report to Morocco in the next blog.
To the soon!
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