Gibraltar

 As soon as we arrived Mandy put the Christmas decorations up.

A few days after that Mandy went home to work and Dave and Andy came for a visit. All three of them agreed that Gibraltar airport is the best airport in the world. No waiting in long queues, crazy security checks and you can walk across the runway. 

Dave brought whisky

We did the tour of the rock, amazing views, big gun emplacements, monkeys, caves, tunnels, bridges. Really interesting, highly recommended. We walked around for 6 hours, the next day I could hardly move as my calves were so sore with walking up and down inclines. A lot of history for such a small place. Andy got attacked by a monkey, well belted on the head, as it thought he was chasing it's baby. (He wasn't by the way). 

The monkeys are really cute until you see their bums.

This is our marina

Runway and Spanish marina

This gun could shoot across the straits to Morocco.

Then, again, they were gone. It's really sad when people leave. But a good shot of the Rock as Andy left. Time to do my boat jobs.

Mandy returned from Blighty and I did the Rock tour again, just as interesting a second time, not quite so exhausting for me. Mandy still enjoyed herself even though she doesn't like heights. White knuckles on the cable car up.

Managed to get a quick pic on the skybridge before she ran off.

Caught the lights to capture the angel in the caves. 

Found out these caves were discovered by the ancient Greeks. So much history to this place, been fought over for thousands of years. In fact still fighting over it. We were told by the marina staff that a lot of Brits are being refused access to Spain from Gibraltar. Brexit, Schengen, access to airport for Spain, who knows why. 30,000 people live in a 2.5 square mile area and it looks like everyone has a car or a scooter. The roads are crazy busy all the time and they drive on the wrong side of the road.

Still, Gibraltar is well worth a visit just to see the history, but also the alcohol is cheap and the fuel is €1 a litre, half the cost of France, Spain and Portugal. We were going to drive to Alicante to see Carmen for the new year but decided we may as well go in the boat, less chance of being refused access. So we are setting off tomorrow to do an over nighter on the longest night of the year, and there is no moon after midnight so it's going to be a dark one. Goodbye Gibraltar, we'll be back.