The moment Covid restrictions were lifted, we planned a trip across Europe for Summer 2021. Only days before going some countries reapplied restrictions, what a nightmare. We decided to keep things simple, and planned a trip around Spain finishing in Gibraltar.
La Línea
We arrived in La Línea de la Concepción after spending the most amazing 2 weeks in Spain. We will go into the details of other places we visited in future blogs, but today we will focus on La Línea and Gibraltar. Our train/bus ride from Rhonda was pretty uneventful and it just so happened the hotel we had booked was right beside the bus station in La Línea.
We were pleasantly surprised with La Línea de la Concepción. We spent our 1st evening walking around the streets and squares, taking in the lovely atmosphere of the city.
If you are looking somewhere to eat I can recommend Revuelo Taberna Urbana. I’m not normally one to recommend places to eat, but I fully recommend here.
La Linea is well worth a visit if you are staying on either side of the border. The price of hotels and food is cheaper than Gibraltar so it suited us. It was also a bit more chilled, which we needed after a few busy weeks.
Gibraltar
The border crossing at Gibraltar can by all accounts be a bit of a nightmare at times. When we visited it was relatively quick, but we have heard of long waits.
We have written a guide on crossing the border as a British Citizen.
Once in Gibraltar you can walk to most of the tourist places of interest, but there is a good bus service, and taxis are plentiful.
I’m not going to go into great detail on all the tourist attractions, the name of this blog is ‘300 seconds on ‘The Rock” so lets go.
300 seconds on ‘The Rock’
Cable Car
While I am petrified of heights and cable cars are not my thing, I wasn’t coming to Gibraltar and not going up ‘The Rock’.
On our train/bus ride the day before I noted down all the places we could visit up there and was excited but apprehensive.
We headed over early to beat the queues with a plan to stay the day up there and visit the Nature Reserve, 100 Ton Gun, Siege Tunnels, and St Michael’s Cave. Tickets can be purchased online in advance, but just be aware it isn’t cheap.
We found the cable car pretty easily, there was no queue and up we went more or less straight away.
Views
There are some great views from the car as it rises up 412 metres in under 6 minutes.
We read all the warnings about being careful with the Apes, don’t have any food, keep everything secured to you and out of sight.
Apes
However, heart rates fastened when an Ape entered our cable car as soon as we landed at the top.
The Ape was moved on by the staff and we were told it would be grand, and just to keep walking. We looked up the first hill and there was petrified tourists not knowing what to do, or how to get past these Apes who had obviously emptied their bags.
We managed to navigate are way past the first group, and got up to the top of one of the viewing sections. Then disaster struck! We heard this scream from a family behind us. The young daughter had been attacked by an ape and had one swinging by the teeth from her arm.
Needless to say, my young daughter was not up for walking any further. We navigated our way past the group of apes who were eating Pringles they got off someone earlier and made it to the safety of the cable car.
The cable car was held until the family whose daughter was bitten had been looked at by a medic. The family were clearly in shock. However, the daughter was loving her battle scar and couldn’t wait to tell everyone in school.
Thoughts on our 300 seconds on ‘The Rock’
What we seen was a freak, attacks are very uncommon, so be careful. The child was unlucky and had done nothing wrong. I believe as this was shortly after Covid restrictions were lifted they were just a tad more aggressive towards people. It was a real pity that our visit was so short lived, as I had heard so many good things about visiting up there. I don’t think I will be back anytime soon anyway!
We hope you enjoyed reading about our short visit to ‘The Rock.’
Thanks
The Lewis Family.