Little Britain in summer, and Market day in Cadiz

 We rolled out of our pit early this morning, as we had booked our breakfast in bed for between 7.00 and 7.30 am, as we wanted an early start on our day in Gibraltar and would be let loose to leave the ship at 8am. The first stage was to get from the port  to Casemates Square at the bottom of Main street, which we followed for a couple of hundred yards, before we turned left onto Engineer Lane, and then left again onto  Castle Street(not so much a street, more like a flight of steps) which took us up the hill until we hit Willis's Road and again heading up a steep hill until we reached the Moorish Castle. We had booked on line and bought a Gibraltar day pass, which for the cost of £50 promised  free entry in to all the main tourist attraction in Gibraltar, and either a return trip in the cable car or a coach trip to the top the rock, and free bus travel around the town. We presented our digital copy of our day passed to the bemused gent at the kiosk. Apparently we should have activated them when we either went up in the cable car or when we got our coach up, and couldn't understand why we hadn't and more over had chosen to walk up. If a picture paints a thousand words his face just said "mad dogs and English men".Fortunately for us he relented and issued us with the wristband we needed to continue our adventure.

We then carried on up the hill to the world war 2 tunnels exhibition, which took about an hour to complete. If the term" to complete sounds like it was a chore, I apologise, I found very interesting, but it not exactly Perdita's era of history, she will get here turn when we get the Roman parts of our trip, but we did both agree that the view from Jocks Balcony was magnificent.

From there we went up to the city under siege and great siege tunnels, which date back to the 17 hundreds when Gibraltar was under siege from both French and Spanish forces and lasted for over 2 years. Not really in either of our historic eras but certainly worth the visit.

From here we proceeded along the nature trail, passing several more  batteries, including the Devil's Gap and Genoese batteries to the Apes Den, where we were both disappointed not to see any signs of the world famous Barbary Apes that Gibraltar is probably most famous for. Undeterred we then took up the Monkey trail which took us over the Windsor suspension bridge to St Michael's caves. This is where we got our first glimpse of the Monkeys, just 2 of them a mother and quite young baby that obviously  wanted to keep their distance from the tourists, visiting their patch. Only the upper level of caves can be seen by visitors, the lower caves are not on the tour, but the ones you could see were really spectacular, and the 5 minute light show certainly showcased their beauty.

Next up was lunch, some tapas and beverages from the cafe at the caves, then further up the hill to the skywalk. This was the bit I was worried about, I don't do heights, and the thought of standing on a piece you of glass with a 200 meter drop right underneath you just seems wrong on so many levels. I did manage it though and with clean dry shorts was a bonus😁 . Here we also saw some more of Gibraltar, most famous inhabitants, this time they were a lot more mischievous, trying to steal a carton of water from our bag, but with Perdita's security measures they didn't stand a chance. From here we were on our last leg, up to the top cable car station, and down to the bottom of the hill on it, then a nice gentle stroll down Main Street, window shopping, trying out one or two of the local hostelries and finally back to the boat.

A good day, over 25,000 steps (just under 10 miles) 4 hundred  plus meters of climb, we had both earned our dinner and a few drinks tonight, and Perdita treated herself to a Chocolate Ember cocktail.

Pongo and Perdita signing off for today.