11/29: Gibraltar's John & Yoko, Barbary Macaques, Psychedelic Cave & Siege Tunnels!

We'd come to Algeciras in the far south of Spain to take easy day trips to both Tangier in northern Morocco, and the famous Rock of Gibraltar. We'd spent the previous day being quite disappointed by our first taste of Morocco and were hoping for a more enjoyable day in this highly strategic spit of land Britain has controlled since they took it by force in 1704 during the War of Spanish Succession. During WW II, the Rock was heavily fortified and was dug through with many defensive tunnels. Britain's hold on the overseas colony became rather tenuous during the mid to late 20th century Franco dictatorship.

Catching our first glimpse of the imposing Rock from the Spanish shoreline was incredibly impressive. Going through passport control, we felt like we'd entered a time warp and had been deposited in merry old England when we heard the 'only from England accents' of the immigration officers!

Never before have we needed to walk across a runway to enter a town as we did after taking the bus to La Linea de la Concepcion, the last Spanish town on the frontier as it was called! We made sure to look left, right and up before crossing.

We knew we sure weren't back in my mother's homeland when we spotted these lovely bird-of paradise flowers.

On our stroll into town, we could see the Moorish Castle built in 1160 but we decided to put off visiting it until later.

Walking over the North Bastion took us to Casemates Square, named after the military barracks located there. Formerly the site of public executions and ammunition storage, the square looked very lively with lots of restaurants and shops and a fun place to walk around. 

When Spanish dictator Franco closed the border with Spain in 1969, Gibraltar suffered a labor shortage as Spanish guest workers could no longer commute there. The colony then invited Moroccan workers to take their place, ending a nearly 500 year absence when they fled and were forced out during the Reconquista of 1492. The Moroccans needed apartments so the former barracks were converted for that purpose.

I really enjoyed learning all about glass blowing in this store which claimed to sell the only items "Made in Gibraltar." It was far too impractical, however, even thinking of trying to safely lug a piece of gorgeous crystal around in either of our bags for the last three weeks of our trip. To become a master glassblower required ten years of apprenticeship - no wonder the resulting items were expensive or 'dear' as the Brits say!

I hadn't thought about it much but I hadn't realized that glass has been widely used for the last 5,000 years. Did you know that the most sophisticated component on many of today's electrical and computer ware is glass and that it's also used on the outside of the space shuttle? For glass, the sky is literally the limit when it comes to finding uses for the infinitely versatile material.

Very few tools are used in making glass objects; they're also extremely simple and look much the same as they did 250 years ago.

Walking through the Grand Casemates Gates took us to a market whose stalls lacked the character of the souks we'd seen yesterday in Tangier but were, no doubt, far more sanitary!

The town only had one main street, unimaginatively named Main St! It was a shopping drag with signs galore advertising tax-free liquor, cigarettes, jewelry and Lladro porcelain that was very expensive over in Spain because of the VAT. We could have stocked up on my favorite British treats but again didn't because of space concerns. I did check out some items, but we'd have paid a premium as they were all "imported" from the UK.

Having just spent three plus weeks in Spain, it seemed so odd hearing locals all speaking what I'd have said was the Queen's English all of a sudden and overhearing phrases like 'Good on you, mate.' The locals, unlike their counterparts in Britain, have voted to remain part of the European Union which has created a bit of a mess with Brexit.

The Catholic Cathedral of St. Mary the Crowned, built on the remains of a mosque in 1492, still retained some of its Arab heritage with its distinctly Moorish tile work in the arched entrance way.

The large Marks & Spencer department store no doubt reminded vacationing Brits of home!

Off the pedestrian mall was the Gibraltar Museum which told the story of this parcel of land that has been fought over for centuries. 

Artifacts left in a cave by Phoenician and Carthaginian mariners 2,800 to 2,200 years ago and found in the 1950s, led to the conclusion it had been a place of worship and the offerings had been left for the gods for safe passage. Andrew: If you're reading this, I can see your laughing at the museum's crude display of ancient man!

Found in Gibraltar in 1848 was the first skull of a Neanderthal ever discovered, but no one ever realized its significance until a similar skull found years later in Germany's Neanderthal Valley was correctly identified. That discovery stole the name, claim, and fame from Gibraltar! On the left was a copy of the reconstruction of Gibraltar 1; on the right was Gibraltar 2. 

Steven and I are visiting Ireland and the UK this fall for about six weeks. It sure would be neat to see the originals of these skulls when we're in London's British Museum in October. 

An Egyptian mummy was found floating in the Bay of Gibraltar after a ship traveling from Egypt to England was shipwrecked! Howard Carter, the famous Egyptologist, examined photographs of the mummy and concluded it came from Thebes and dated it to around 2,800 years ago. 

It was impressive that 3D technology could print out this Neanderthal engraving from the grave.

The museum had been built atop 14th century Moorish baths which were reopened after conservation in 2005. 

It was interesting walking around the 15-foot long model of the Rock so we could see how much more there was than what we'd already seen since arriving on Gibraltar.

Military and history buffs would have been more excited than I viewing the old photos of Gibraltar and of people crossing the runway in 1944, an Anti U-Boat patrol blimp, etc.

I preferred looking at the watercolor paintings of the town in the mid 1800s.

Gibraltar's Courthouse was where John and Yoko Ono got married in 1969 as did Sean Connery. I read in Rick Steves' book that many Brits likes to marry here because weddings are cheap, only 48 hours' notice is required and they're legally recognized as British.

The British governor of Gibraltar took over a Franciscan convent as his official residence in 1728 and named it The Convent.

I didn't think we'd ever seen a Methodist Church before so we walked upstairs to see the one in Gibraltar. I read that it puts on a rousing karaoke-style service on Sunday afternoons - now that would have been something to attend!

Although a wall had existed here since the Moorish occupation of Gibraltar, the Southport Wall and Gates were part of a wall that was commissioned by Charles 1 of Spain, the Holy Roman Emperor, following an attack on Gibraltar by Barbary pirates in 1540.

Just beyond the gate was Trafalgar Cemetery which held the remains of those who died in Gibraltar after Admiral Nelson's victory at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Those that perished during the battle were buried at sea. Other graves dated from 1798. 

After seeing the 'sights' we'd wanted to see in town, we took the cable car to the summit of the Rock and its Upper Rock Nature Reserve. The panoramic views on the ascent were quite stunning as you could imagine.

At the top, we caught our first view of some of the 200 or so tailless Barbary Macaques, a type of monkey. While waiting for a ride up, we'd been inundated with warnings about staying clear of them, to not carry plastic bags because they associate the bags with food, and are known kleptomaniacs if absentminded tourists aren't careful!

As we walked along the ramparts we had to be extremely careful  because they weren't very tourist-friendly or safe. I was surprised they hadn't made clambering around the ramparts safer without taking away from the beauty of the site.  

The male macaques were bigger, females had beards and newborns were black; they live about 15-20 years. Legend has it that as long as the monkeys remained, so would the Brits!

From the top cable-car station, we began the long walk downhill rather than returning via by cable car again as we wanted to see some of the views and sights en route.

The apes seemed to enjoy munching on the oranges and carrots in the feeding station.

You can see how tame the apes were at the viewpoint for the taxi tours as they waited for tour groups to come feed them!

O'Hara's Battery was the highest point on the Rock at 1,400 feet. The former Moorish lookout was built after WW I.  Locals were glad when the last test shot was fired in 1974, because during test firings they had to open their windows which might otherwise have shattered!

Even the baby apes were great leapers!

Led by a shepherd, 500 Spanish soldiers climbed the east face of the Rock in 1704 from Catalan Bay to the garrison but they were discovered and made prisoners. 

Steven jokingly said "I PAID to come out on this glass Skywalk?!"

We couldn't venture out too far on the Skywalk as even it was partially damaged with cracks in the glass!

Zachary: you'd have liked seeing the faithful reproduction of the original concrete base used for an anti-aircraft Bofors Gun during WWII.

This arch was called Prince Philip's Arch.

The iron rings we saw every thirty yards or so on the paved paths or military lanes around the Rock would have had strong rope attached so guns like the huge ones at O'Hara's Battery could be hauled up.

Further down the hill, we stopped at St. Michael's Cave which was known to the Romans and long believed to be bottomless. The cave was alluded to in ancient Greek legends when it was thought to be the Gates of Hades or the entrance of a tunnel to Africa! The upper hall, used as an auxiliary hospital in 1942, is now used for concerts. 

The Stalacto was a columnar deposit formed by the joining of a stalactite with its complementary stalagmite. I could have done without the psychedelic lights that changed every few moments but it was a very, very impressive cave. 

I especially liked the Drapes, the thin, wavy sheets of calcite that hung downward. They occurred where the water droplets traveled along the cave ceiling before dropping onto the cave floor. 

Straws were hollow, mineral cylindrical tubes that grew in places where water slowly leached through cracks in the rocks, such as on the rocks of caves. Sofa straws in caves may only grow an average of a tenth of a millimeter a year.

This was the first cave I remembered being in that wasn't cooler than the outside. 

This Polished Stalagmite broke and fell onto its side thousands of years ago as the result of a seismic cataclysm, which must have shaken the Rock of Gibraltar.

 I thought the warning not to touch anything and therefore destroy in minutes what nature created over many centuries very apt.

Once we exited, I began eating one of the few granola bars I had left that I'd brought with me from home when, out of nowhere, a good-sized ape grabbed my arm and wouldn't let go. I was so taken aback and shaken up for a bit after I gave up my snack to that greedy ape!

The Queen's Lookout was where Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, stood and looked out over Gibraltar during their visit to the Rock in May of 1954, less than a month before I was born. My middle name is also Elizabeth but I wasn't named after the queen!

At the Lower Apes' Den, we watched the apes carefully cleaning each other's fur.

We eventually reached a terrace with three flags: Gibraltar's, the UK's and the EU's from left to right. We wondered if the lone ape sitting there would be the last one we saw that day because, the lower down on the Rock we went, there were fewer and fewer apes.

We had a great view of the runway we'd walked earlier,

and the Spanish frontier town of La Linea de la Concepcion.

We had a pretty steep hike from the terrace back up to the Siege Tunnels, also called the Upper Galleries, which were blasted out of solid rock by the Brits during the Great Siege by Spanish and French forces from 1779-1783. They were dug initially to reach 'The Notch,' a spot on the north face of the Rock so that a canon could be mounted there on attacking French and Spanish forces. As ventilation holes were added along the length of the tunnel, they had a better idea: use gunpowder to carve out a whole network of tunnels that would be ideal for aiming artillery. 

Woven rope or mantlets were used to camouflage the artillery guns from the exterior. The mantlets gave some protection to the gunners from enemy fire and may have helped to minimize smoke and sparks from blowing back into the area when the cannon was fired. Smoke would have slowed down the rate of firing by making aiming and other tasks more difficult. 

These giant curtain rails probably dated from the middle of the 19th century but it is thought a similar system was used during the Great Siege. 

This was the place where the first cannon was installed after the miners made an opening in the cliff face. Perhaps because the cannon's location was 'accidental' rather than planned, it was the only place where a gun was located in the tunnel itself. All the others were in specially created chambers that led off the tunnel and needed to be enlarged to accommodate the cannon's recoil and allow access around it. 

The rings in the tunnels were the anchor points for a system of ropes and pulleys that allowed the gunners to run the cannon forwards after loading and into a position to be fired.

When the Great Siege ended in February of 1783, this gallery was 370 feet long and had four guns mounted in six embrasures or small openings. When the Duc de Crillon who had commanded the enemy forces was later shown the tunnels, he was reported to have said, "These works are worthy of the Romans." What a testament to the miners' long and difficult work!

Different types of projectiles were developed during the Great Siege as many of the explosive shells fired at the besieging enemy buried themselves in the soft, sandy soil or caused relatively little damage or injury. Experiments with different types of fuses were done by Colonel Mercer to ensure that shells exploded before hitting the ground. After the siege, his ideas were further developed by Colonel Shrapnel whose name is still used for fragments from exploding shells!

Gibraltar's main role during WW I was as a fueling station and dockyard facility. The garrison was only used in one engagement, in which a German U-boat was sunk off Algeciras, the place where we stayed to reach both Tangier and Gibraltar. The Great Siege Tunnel played a significant role in the Second World War with the concrete mounting pad in the embrasures used for the large generators that powered Gibraltar's searchlights.

St. George's Hall was a huge cavern that had seven cannon barrels mounted on Victorian gun carriages

The aim of tunneling that took place during WW II was to provide facilities for the garrison to live inside the Rock for up to a year! That meant catering for all the needs of 16,000 men.

By 1943, almost 34 miles of tunnels were completed with the bulk of the work done by four companies of the Royal Engineers, mainly consisting of miners and quarry workers plus a company of Canadian tunnelers that had perfected a technique using diamond drills and blasting with high explosives. A long extension, known as the Holy Land Tunnel, was also added that continued the siege tunnel through to the other side of the rock. 

Finally reaching the end of that long tunnel and seeing the bright blue sky and wild blue yonder felt like our own minor accomplishment, even though it wasn't anything compared to what the miners, engineers and those brave men who survived huge challenges living in the tunnels during the Great Siege. 

I'm guessing that we spent probably spent close to two hours in the siege tunnels, but the time went by very quickly as the exhibits were so engrossing, we could see them at our own pace with hardly any other tourists around, and it was great exercise on top of that!

Heading out into the bright sunshine again, we came across the 1905 Princess Caroline's Battery with its three flags and equally panoramic views of the bay and Spain beyond it. Or, was that Africa we were seeing? I don't know!

A short path led us to the last remaining Lime Kiln in Gibraltar. The ovens were used to produce lime to whitewash buildings, paint water cisterns to ensure the water was kept free of bacteria, and most importantly, in times of plague, for pouring over bodies in mass graves to prevent further contamination. It likely dated from the 19th century and its heat-resistant bricks were made in England.

We were getting pretty tired by then and still had a long way down the rest of the Rock but mustered enough energy to look at the City Under Siege exhibit in some of the first British structures built on Gibraltar soil. The displays recreated the days of the Great Siege which lasted for more than three and a half years and was just one of fourteen sieges that attempted to expel the Brits from the Rock.

The two buildings that comprised Willis's Magazine had thick bombproof walls and were used to store gunpowder and cannonballs. A sign here stated that the Lime Kiln we'd just seen was also used to heat a hundred cannonballs at once until they were red hot. Nicknamed roast potatoes, they were then carried in wheelbarrows full of sand to the two batteries above. 

During the siege, so many people existed on a poor diet and were closely confined for long periods in unsanitary conditions, that smallpox, yellow fever, influenza, dysentery and scurvy thrived. I read that by the end of the first year of the siege, smallpox alone killed over 500, with the highest mortality rate among the children. That was the first indication I'd seen of children being present during the siege as all references in the tunnels had only spoken about men.

Flogging didn't sometimes act as a deterrent for maintaining discipline. One drummer in the Lancashire Regiment held the record for the most flogged man in the British Army. In his 14 years of service, he received 30,000 lashes; 4,000 were administered in just his first year! The rules stated that any woman who physically beat a soldier would be whipped and removed from the town! 

"A man having been so wicked and cowardly as to hang himself" would receive no funeral service for "such a heinous action." The body was hung up by his heels for a time and then thrown over the wall like a dog or cat. 

A supply of fresh water is always one of the most important factors in surviving a siege. That was never an issue even during the three plus years of the Great Siege when the population exceeded 7,000 because a sophisticated system of channels made of stone and ran in front of the buildings gathered rainwater into a lower tank.

To preserve their supplies of flour, soldiers were stopped from powdering their hair. The high prices that could be charged for even small quantities of poor quality food tempted ships from North Africa to smuggle supplies past the enemy. But civilians survived on little more than grass, seaweed and wild onions. The list showed that during the siege, a simple cabbage cost the equivalent of two and a half days of soldier's pay!

Steven said he'd always wondered if he could lift a cannonball so he tried it here. 

The jokester fooled me as it only weighed a few ounces!

As sieges were often very boring, many soldiers must have whiled away the long hours by carving graffiti as the walls of the buildings were covered with examples. Their names, dates, regiments and drawings have survived as an unique record of their time spent in Gibraltar. 

Although the dioramas may have been somewhat hokey, I felt we got a real sense of what it must have been like to live on the Rock and cut off from the outside world during such challenging times, and especially for so long.

A much better view of the Moorish Castle that we'd first seen from the runway and was our goal before we left the Rock.

Glass had been embedded on top of the stone fence, likely as a defensive measure.

We came to more tunnels but both of us were 'tunneled out' by then and gave them a pass. 

The Moorish Castle was the largest tower constructed in Al-Andalus, the area of Iberia controlled by Muslims for almost 700 years. From the top of the castle's main feature, the Tower of Homage, there was a great vantage point of all the movements into the Bay and through the Straight of Gibraltar. 

Situated about 300 feet above sea level, the tower we looked at was the result of centuries of remodeling, repairs and extensions required by the sieges. It was constructed mostly of tapia, a common cement molded in frames and then plastered over with a much finer cement.

The white patches came from a lime whitewash that dated to the Spanish times when it was known as Torre Blanca. 

This space was determined to have been a Prayer Room during Moorish times because of its plaster ceiling moldings. After it was converted into a Christian chapel following the Reconquista, it became a place of pilgrimage when the bones of a Spanish nobleman were buried here in 1453 when he drowned after trying an amphibious landing trying to recapture the Rock for his countrymen.

The city of Gibraltar's very existence, and therefore its history, was due from its use as a defensive point capable of exercising control over the Strait. It served the same purpose under the Muslims, the Spanish and then the British. 

These turned out to be our last magnificent views from the Rock's higher elevation before walking down into the city.

It seemed like we had gone from the sublime to the ridiculous when the steps took us past this humongous octopus mural so shortly after being at the castle!

We didn't get back to our grotty room in our relatively expensive hotel in Algeciras until 7:30 that night, about ten plus hours since setting out that morning for an exciting day trip to Gibraltar. We'd enjoyed Gibraltar so much more than our previous day in Tangier because of its rich military and archaeological history, its stunning scenery and views from all over the Rock, and even its dastardly Barbary macaques!

I wasn't hungry and needed to 'work' on a blog post when we returned to the hotel so Steven left and went looking for something to eat. On his way back, he took these pictures of the city's only charming square. Seeing them made me wish I'd accompanied him.

Next post: Onto Arcos de la Frontera, a White Hill town in southern Spain almost as pretty as Ronda!

Posted from snowy Littleton, Colorado - I hope it's warmer where you are!