Day 3 - Jun 3, 2018 Ceuta, Spain (Africa) & Gibraltar

Today is a big day for travel.  We first took the 1h fast ferry from Algeciras to Ceuta.  Ceuta is one of two Spanish enclaves on African soil (the other is Melilla), both share a border with Morocco.   Ceuta was under Christian hands since ancient Greece and later Roman but went back to Muslim rule when Spain was invaded by the Moors.  It's now an autonomous territory and duty free zone.  We had low expectations of Ceuta before our visit thinking it might resemble Tangier where you'd be haggled to death but we're wrong.  The place is very clean and you can tell the government cares about its appearance.  Everyone went about their own business and we were left alone.  Since it's on a peninsula, there are coasts and beaches everywhere.  There are wide boulevards for pedestrians along the shore and old streets inside town for us to explore.  It's a piece of Europe on Africa.  It definitely can make it on our list of retirement places with its very pleasant climate!

Wines are even cheaper here than the already low low prices on mainland Spain so we stocked up for the next few days.  For less than 3 euros a bottle, we can have very decent wines!

We picked up our car from our hotel in Algeciras and drove to nearby La Lineas and walked across to Gibraltar.  "The Rock" forms one side of the "Pillars of Hercules", with Mount Abyla next to Ceuta forming the other pillar 14 km away.  The Rock is only 380m high but it looks taller since it literally rises straight up from ocean.

To enter Gibraltar, we have to walk across an active airport runway!  So cool!  When planes land or takeoff, they will close the runway to pedestrian traffic!  It must be the only place on earth that you can do this!  Other than this and the view it affords on top, Gibraltar didn't excite us.  We felt we were in a gigantic Disneyland!  We had to walk past the touristy Main Street filled with shops and restaurants before we could reach the main attraction - cable car to reach the peak.  The price is a rip off at 21 euros.

The view from the top is simply sublime!  We could see the whole town below as well as on the Spain side.  Since Gibraltar is a tiny 6 km long peninsula, most of the buildings are built on reclaimed land.  I don't see why people flock to Gibraltar.  There is not much to do here.  The hotels and food are extremely pricy despite its duty free status.  We didn't even see too many of its famous Marque monkeys on the peak!  And it's dirty and very touristy.  Yet, Spain and Britain have been bickering about this strategic spot for decades.  Spain actually closed the border for years to force the issue, only opening it back up when it joined EU in 1985.

We had a close encounter with the monkey when we came down.  Yi literally had a bag of chips ripped away by a sneaky monkey out of her hands!  It must like it very much as it licked the bag clean!