We were up early to get to the walking track on deck 14.
The temperature was 18 C with some wind since we were still approaching
Gibraltar, a British territory. The Rock
of Gibraltar looms more than 450 meters above the Mediterranean where it meets
the Atlantic Ocean. We watched as with
each lap the “Rock” became larger and clearer as the sun rose. After walking
two miles, we stopped for coffee and returned to the stateroom to get ready for
breakfast. We were joined by Jan and
Alan who took the same tour as we are today.
We met at 9:30 a.m. for our Gibraltar tour titled “City
Under Siege”. The vehicles drive on the
right side of the road as in the rest of Europe. The Rock of Gibraltar is made
of limestone. The name in Arabic meant Tariq’s Mountain after Tariq captured
the territory in the 8th century. The
name eventually morphed into “gibraltar”. The British and Dutch navies under Admiral
Rooke won Gibraltar in a War of the Spanish Succession battle on
August 7, 1704. Louis Alexandre de
Bourbon comte de Toulouse signed the surrender documents. The tip of the
Gibraltar peninsula is the furthest southern point of continental Europe. The coast of Morocco is about 23 kilometers
across the Strait of Gibraltar from Gibraltar and at the narrowest point along
the Strait of Gibraltar it is 14.3 kilometers across. It is near the “Pillars of Hercules” which
are two point of land visible when travelling from east to west approaching the
Strait of Gibraltar. This western
section of the Mediterranean Sea, near the Atlantic Ocean, is known as the
Alboran Sea. The Strait of Gibraltar is
located at its western end.
First stop was the Gibraltar Museum, where we climbed to
the third floor to view an 1865 model of the area and to see replicas of tools
used to make the late 18th century Siege Tunnels that we entered later. Then the group of 23 was driven to the cable
car station to take a ride up the Rock of Gibraltar to 1002 feet above sea
level. It is a much shorter ride than
the cable car journey we had near Palm Springs, California. The views of the
harbor, shores and open sea from the top were amazing. You could even see the only runway of the
airport. It was built originally during
World War 2. Today there is a major road
that runs across it, which has a traffic light to stop traffic when a plane is
going to land. The runway is ranked as
the fifth worst runway in the world because of the wind currents in the valley
where the planes need to land. Up at the
top of the Rock of Gibraltar, we saw the semi wild tailless Barbary Apes who
live in the area. There are about 250
and some of these small monkey-like apes “pose” on the railings for people to
photograph them. Tourists are not
supposed to feed them or touch them. It is said that as long as the apes remain
in Gibraltar, so will the British. We
had time for a quick coffee or stronger and to browse the gift shop.
We took the cable car half way down to meet the bus and saw
Princess Caroline’s Battery from World War 2 as the bus drove to the car park
for the 1779 to 1783 siege tunnels. The port was blockaded by French and
Spanish ships starting in the summer of 1779. The 18th century tunnels, which
were blasted from the rock, took from May 25, 1782 to May 11, 1783 to complete.
With a hidden position to fire cannons at the Spanish and French ships, the
British were able to successfully defend Gibraltar as well as receiving relief
supplies in the springs of 1780 and 1781.
It took a week to blast and dig by hand through 85 feet of
rock back then, compared to less than a day in 1940 to blast and remove 185
feet of rock. The rock was then used as
the base on which to build the runway.
We passed the 13th century Moorish Castle with its canon
pock marks, on the way back to the city center.
Most of the group got off at the stop by the shopping street, to either
browse the shops or walk back to the pier, just over a kilometer away. By the time we reached the ship we had
accumulated 5.2 miles for the day.
We had lunch in the Oceanview Café after 2. It was much less crowded than the day
before. We also stopped for our
afternoon expresso frappé before returning to the stateroom for a nap.
After dinner, we went to the Senior Officers Cocktail
Party specifically for passengers that have accumulated more than 75 days of
cruising with Celebrity Cruises. We joined Jan and Alan and met Pat and Peter
from Southeastern England and Betty and Derek from Northern Ireland. The house band, Front Row, played 45 minutes
of dance music for the 100 guests. The
cocktail party ended at 8:30 p.m., some guests went to find seats for the 9
p.m. show featuring Oli Nez, saxophonist, or to a late 8:30 p.m. dinner. We stopped
at the Café al Bacio for frappes before retiring for the night. Front Row, later played in the Grand Foyer
from 9:45 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.
Today we logged 5.7 miles. There is no need to get up early tomorrow as
it is a day at sea as we travel from Gibraltar to Lisbon, Portugal.
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