Gibraltar Part I

The Cruise reached our first port after two days at sea - The Rock of Gibraltar.

We had decided to explore Gibraltar on our own rather than taking a shore excursion so I had studied the maps and found things worth doing.

The port entrance hallway has a nice large seal of Gibraltar on its wall.  The seal dates back to the Spanish occupation prior to the Rock being taken over by the British.

Going through the port was a non-event.  A sign said non-UK/EU persons had to check in but a friendly security guard waved us past the sign with a quick "That's not needed, on you go", and so we went.

 

We decided to walk into town, which was a relatively short walk of about 20 minutes down a nice, straight road with no real opportunity to get lost so long as you went straight through the roundabouts.

The first roundabout has a memorial to the evacuation of the Gibraltareans during the WWII.

Father down the street there's a memorial to the Gibraltar Defense Force; Gibraltar Volunteer Corp and the Gibraltar Regiment for their service in WWII:

We then reached the entrance to the town:

It's called the water gate as everything on this side of it is reclaimed land.  The water used to come right up to this casemate.

Inside the old town were charming streets and shops a-plenty. 

The Brits on board had left the ship excitedly with their shopping bags as Gibraltar is a tax/duty free shopping haven for them.  It did indeed have several lovely shops with great prices on everything from leather goods, alcohol, high quality quilting scissors (which Tash scooped up for herself and her mom), and many other fine things.

We browsed our way through the streets and as it was hot, we had plenty of liquids.  We then decided to take a local tour via a mini van with a tour guide and two other couples along with us as walking around the rock would have been rather taxing and the gondola up the rock had a very long line.

So we then got in the van with the guide, and started to explore the Rock.