Here's what The Rock looks like from sea.
I thought WTF? It doesn't look anything at all like this:
Not even close (and I should know - I stood by the starboard railing for 2 hours waiting to see The Rock). Mystery solved later.
Gibraltar (like eeeeeeeeeverything in Europe) has a long history). Evidence in one of the caves suggests that Gibraltar, circa 28,000 BC, was the last holdout of the Neanderthals.
Later on, the Phoenicians took over around 850 BC. From then on there were a whole series of conquerors, renters, owners, squatters until finally in 1713 the Treaty of Utrecht was signed. Gibraltar was ceded to England in exchange for the British getting out of some war involving Spain, Great Britain, France, Portugal, Savoy and the Dutch Republic. Spain signed the treaty, but they weren't happy about it. To this day they're still pissed.
As you would guess, Gibraltar is in a very strategic position. The British Royal Navy has made good use of it, especially after the Suez Canal opened. In WWII, the British population was evacuated and the British beefed up fortifications considerably. Oddly enough, it was good ole Generalissimo Franco who prevented the Germans from enacting Operation Felix - a plan to seize Gibraltar. In typical dictator fashion, he became a pain-in-the-ass when in the 1950's he declared Spanish sovereignty over Gibraltar. The British told him to piss off and since Franco didn't have the keys to the front door of the fort he decided the best he could do was to close the border. In 1967, and again in 2002 (by a margin of 98%) the Gibraltarians voted to stay British. Ironically, in 1985 Spain was forced to reopen the border as part of their requirements to join the European Union. To this day they do so with reluctance and petulance. They will arbitrarily close the border for several hours just be be jerks.
The British dug some 35 miles of tunnels through the rock during WWII (the tunnels are longer than all of the streets of Gibraltar added together). Well, that's not exactly true. The first tunnels were dug in the 1800's. The British started extensively expanding the tunnels early in WWII, then found out they didn't know diddly shit about boring through rock. The Canadians, however, were already experts - so the British used them to dig. Reportedly, the Canadians accomplished in one day what had taken the British engineers a week. Initially they used high pressure water to "drill"
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| "Royal Engineers tunnelling in Gibraltar, 1941" by Dallison G W (Lieut), War Office official photographer - This is photograph GM 63 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums.. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - tp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Royal_Engineers_tunnelling_in_Gibraltar,_1941.jpg#/media/File:Royal_Engineer s_tunnelling _in_Gibraltar,_1941.jpg |
Later on they made extensive use of explosives. As it turns out, this wasn't a bright idea as they got a little carried away with the amount of explosives used. This caused large amounts of high pressure gases to penetrate the rock and weakened the walls. Today, those tunnels are closed to the public. At least that's the official story. During the Cold War, lots of secret equipment was installed.
I took a guided tour of part of the tunnels. It started out with a cool bus ride part way to the top.
If this road looks somewhat familiar it means that you're a 007 fan (like me).
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| "The Living Daylights - UK cinema poster" by Source (WP:NFCC#4). Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Living_Daylights_-_UK_cinema_poster.jpg#/media/File:The_Living_Daylights_-_UK_cinema_poster.jpg |
The opening sequence to The Living Daylights was shot on this road. Our bus driver was a dour Scotsman with an extremely dry sense of humor (and a thick accent - he was terrific). As we left the bus he warned us that we should take great pains not to mention the war to our tour guide. This made no sense whatsoever, until we met our tour guide.
Our tour guide's name was Klaus. Yep, our tour guide of the British WWII fortifications was German. He, of course, was in on the joke and assured us that he was well aware that the Germans had lost the war. "Ve haff to make do vit what hass happened as best ve can".
This is the entrance.
First order of business was to pick out a construction hat.
I thought (initially) that this was somewhat idiotic as the Rock is granite and that if it caved in - a plastic helmet wouldn't make a damn bit of difference. As usual, my wry observation was wrong on several levels. I found this out the first time I bashed my head on a low ceiling. Later I found out the Rock isn't granite at all. It's Jurassic dolomitic limestone. Silly fuckin' me.
Taking this tour isn't for the claustrophobic, however, almost all of the tunnels are quite large. The extensive tunnels were designed to house 16,000 troops, food, water, ammunition, gun emplacements, hospitals, hookers, power generators, fuel, bakery, vehicle maintenance, etc. They had enough provisions to hold out for 16 months, should the need arise.
Our guide was quite amused to inform us that the above pictures (displayed on the wall of the tunnel) were staged. While the Rock can hold 16,000 soldiers - very few of them wanted to live inside unless bombs actually started falling. It's dark and damp. They all lived and slept in town.
In parts of the tunnel you can look up and see some of nature's handiwork.
This is one of several water cisterns.
Eventually the tour breaks out of the mountain with a terrific view of the airport.
Gibraltar is tiny, only 2.3 square miles. They had to stuff the airport in where they could, but this meant that there wasn't enough room to build a road to get from one side of the airport to the other. By this time the British were good and sick of digging tunnels so they just painted road marking on the runway and put up crossing gates (which are activated by the control tower).
For grins, the bus tour takes you across the runway.
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| Nobody on final - Good! |
When the bus turns around at the other side, there is an "a-ha" moment.
There it is!
Finally!
The image of The Rock you've been looking for.
It's also the cliff I unwittingly took the picture of the airport from.
No visit to The Rock would be complete without seeing the famous Barbary Apes.
If you want to get picky (like the two above) - they aren't apes at all. They're tailless monkeys. Barbary macaques to be exact. They're quite infamous thieves. You don't want to get near one. They'll snatch glasses, purses, cameras, jewelry, cell phones, etc. in a flash. Once they get their grubby hands on the item - it's gone. They have sharp teeth with a nasty attitude to back it up. They do, however, hold a sidewalk sale in town once a month where you can get some great bargains for the price of a few bananas. There are 300 apes in Gibraltar and it isn't a bad life. Each one is tattooed, chipped and provided with free check-ups and vet care for life. They're also fed by the government - BUT you don't want to feed them yourself. It's a $6,000 fine to fed the little bastards.
Despite the fact that the British aren't the ones to introduce the monkeys to Gibraltar, there is a long held belief that as long as there are apes on the Rock the territory will remain under British control. In 1942 (during WWII) the population dwindled to just 7 monkeys. Winston Churchill himself ordered that the troop be replenished with macaques from Morocco.
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