Day 9 - Oct 26, 2017 Last updated: 11/25/17 4:00pm PT
Long travel day today. We took the high speed train from Madrid to Málaga, then a bus to Gibraltar. The train took about 2.5 hours and the bus took about 3 hours. The train arrived at 10:50 and we were trying to catch the 11:30 bus. Luckily the train station and bus station are across the street from each other. Since Gibraltar is a British Overseas Territory, the Spanish bus company won’t take you into Gibraltar, as Spain would really like to have it back (Gibraltar is a small piece of land sticking out of the south coast of Spain). The bus dropped us off in La Línea de la Concepción, the Spanish town neighboring Gibraltar to the north. From there you walk across the border, and either take the Gibraltar city bus or walk the rest of the way.
We took the city bus. However, from the bus the streets seemed crazy, we had no idea where we were, and my phone wasn’t getting a signal. At some point we just got off and walked to our hotel (it wasn’t very far, so we got lucky). The hotel was old and undergoing a major remodel, and we had one of the old rooms. Our first night around 7pm, we noticed the water was shut off. It was off for quite a few hours. The hotel manager moved us in to one of their newly remodeled rooms, which was very nice, and also good because the AC in the old room wasn’t keeping up with the heat of the day.
The Rock of Gibraltar as seen from Spain.
Gibraltar, from Grand Casemates Square.
Palm trees next to the iconic British phone booth.
Dinner was at Roy’s for fish and chips. Big, good, but not Masters Superfish good.