Today’s tour started at a place called Europa – it is the
most southerly point of Europe and we were able to see Morocco from there.
Next, we went up the cable car (yes, Krista, I willingly got
on a cable car for 6 minutes each way) to see the Barbary Apes. These are
actually monkeys, not apes and they are tailless. They are quite the hams –
they actually pose for pictures. They can also be quite mischievous – if you
don’t hold on to your belongings, they might just disappear. These are the only
free-roaming monkeys in Europe.
After visiting with the monkeys, we toured the Great Siege
Tunnels. These tunnels were carved out of the limestone during the 1700’s in
order to protect Gibraltar from being captured by the French. The Siege Tunnels
are approximately 700 meters long.
During WWII, miles and miles of tunnels were also built both
below and above the Great Siege Tunnels. They actually built a small city
inside “The Rock”, including hospitals. The British wanted to make sure that
Gibraltar did not fall into German hands.
The airport on Gibraltar is very different. It actually is
owned and run by the RAF and the single runway crosses the major highway
through Gibraltar. When a plane is coming in to land, barriers go down at each
side of the runway to block the traffic from crossing the runway until the
plane has landed.
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