Day trip to Gilbraltar

Blogger just erased all the text I wrote for this post, so now we're going to do the short and sweet version.
Gibraltar is maybe the weirdest place I've ever visited. The rock is much bigger than expected (that's not what makes it weird).




















Chris and Sawyer marvel at its bigness.






















Welcome to the strangest cradle of history ever.






















Chris and I renew our vows (one of our wedding pics is in a like booth).





















The weather was much more clement than expected, but we did have to fight some serious winds during the day.





















On one of the Rock's peaks is a Moorish fort, built and rebuilt from the 8th to the 14th century.





















Here our gregarious guide William shows us the pre-Colombian conception of the world; the Straits of Gibraltar used to be the last known outpost of charted ocean. William, a native Gibraltarian, was quite a character and said things like "come 5 o'clock, it's all choc-a-block out there!" and "Me? I have salt water in my toilets! It's how I live!"





















One stop on our tour was the St. Michael's caves. The rock is full of caves, but these are the most impressive.



























And they have very unfriendly monkeys that hang about preying on people like me who keep crackers in their purse. William promised that later he would take us to the nice monkeys that we could 'play with."





















The marvelous stalagtites of St. Michaels'.








































It's so caverous inside that they've installed a concert space. Bring your rain poncho and your galoshes, it's very wet inside.






















Next stop was the highest point of the rock, with a view down on the coast.





















The highest point is where we met the friendly monkeys. But they were too busy contemplating eternity.





















And there is the highest point itself.





















Oh, now they're ready to play. Sawyer didn't really want to be near them then, but has talked of little else since.





















They really are friendly little creatures. Or at least they'll do anything for a peanut mnm.





















We thought this whole series of pics of Glenn with his favorite son was truly hillarious.



























































Now Chris has a turn.





















And a mama with her little monkey.





















They even stake out your car and have been known to break in and steal your 'sweets.'





















Second to last stop was the tunnels of the Great Seige. They were built during the 1779-1783 seige of Gibraltar by the Spanish--a failed attempt to get the rock back, one of 14, I think.





















Great views of the city, but not a very cozy place to live for 4 years.





















And very, very, very wet. There was even a great hall where one of the commanders gave a dinner after the seige was over. This is not the great hall, but the great puddle.




















Gibraltar has its own airport, and seeing as how the whole thing is so small, the road that enters the city bisects it. So when you're coming into town there's a sign that says that you're crossing a runway and so be quick about it! They close it every now and then to let planes land and take off.





















You can see the holes in the rock where the canons in the tunnels shot from.





















The last stop was another Moorish castle built by a honey for his lover, but now it's the local prison. And apparently it's really bad. William said that human rights groups have been on them for years, and so they're finally building a new one with soccer fields and such. Sawyer had a great time frolicking on the roof.






















That boy love to run!