Although the majority of people living in Gibraltar speak English, Spanish seems to be the preference for conversation, but they also speak Llanito. It's a sort of gibberish or lazy mixture of the two languages with words that seem to exist only here in an accent all of their own. For example gib = gibraltar, not a great example, but you get what I mean?

The people also seem to be some what 'rude', at least by comparison to the Spanish and English generally. Perhaps we only experienced the not so nice residents during our 2 days, but whether they are born and bred or imports from the UK there is a certain unpleasantness associated with their attitudes!?

Anyway, as the guide books state, the streets do have a very British feel, with red phone/post boxes and everything is in English. The shops include the regular High Street brands such as M&S and the supermarkets sell every food you are used to seeing in the UK (with added info, eg Walkers crisps refer to salt from Somerset and cheddar from Cheshire!). In fact, if you woke up here you would probably think you were in the UK, and its very strange after being in Spain the past week.

However there are not enough home comforts for me and personally the less time spent around the 'city' and the more time in the nature reserve/upper rock area, the better.

It's also expensive here, although almost the same as the UK, but we have of course become accustomed to the Euro now. The official currency is the Gibraltar pound but the British pound is accepted here too and seems more common.

Gibraltar spans approx 7 square km, and largely consists of the nature reserve and 'upper rock' area.  

We wanted to make the most of the entrance fee to the main sights during our full day, so opted for walking around the lower road along the coast on the afternoon we arrived.However, unfortunately the road which runs round the perimeter was closed (due to falling rocks - common here!) about 300m from the furthest point on the SW lower road, and of course we had walked a good few kilometres to here, to find this out. The only way back was the way we had come, so reluctantly we found an alternative route up and across to Europa Point before catching the bus back. It's just £1 per journey or £1.50 to ride all day (blue buses only).

We ended our first day meeting up with some fellow geocachers for a drink and bite to eat... certainly different!

On our full day, we continued to take advantage of being on foot and without the car, which is safe in the hotel garage. 

The crossing from La Linea de la Concepción, where we are staying, is pretty quick if you pass through as a pedestrian, but with a car we would have had to queue as well as find somewhere to park. The odd thing is having to walk across the airport runway after passing through immigration - eek!

You can't really come to Gibraltar and not take the cable car. So, even though it's expensive at £8 one way and £9.75 return, we purchased the inclusive ticket (£19.75) which incorporated the nature reserve (separate entrance €1) and the Siege Tunnels (£10), St Michaels cave (£10), Moorish Castle (£10) plus the return cable car. The reserve area also includes the Military Heritage Museum and the City Under Siege Exhibition and of course the famous Ape dens, which is basically where the famous monkeys hang out.

The weather took a turn for the worst and a large black cloud decided to hang around the rock all day, but with hindsight it has continued to worsen with rain everywhere we have been the last few days (now Wednesday, when I am writing this). I still have pictures of when I was in Gibraltar over 30 years ago, with my parents, so can vouch that it is sunny in Gibraltar sometimes though ;).