GibGen Day

 

I thought I might do a post about this amazingly unique place where I live. But I don’t want to drown you all in history and facts (and there is a lot of history going on here!). Soooooo!! I thought that on a Saturday, I would share just bits and pieces with you, and maybe create a page, so if you miss a bit, you can go back and have a sneaky catch-up.

I want to show you the stuff you won’t find on Google. The real reason why I fell in love with this lump of rock, and made it my home. So today, a few of the basics. It is really small, only 2.3 square miles (6 square kilometres) and most of that is rock!! The main town area is the part you can see at the front of the picture, and is home to almost 30,000 people. We ran out of space a little while ago, and had to reclaim some land from the sea, so that middle chunk is only 20 years old.

It is a British territory, has been since 1713, and for such a tiny piece of rock, has been fiercely fought over for several hundred years. English is the official language, although Gibraltarians are all bilingual (or bisexual, as one of my ex work colleagues once informed a bemused tourist!) and speak spanish as well. So that’s it for the history lesson for today, I will tell you more next week. For now, I will share with you a few of the photos I have taken, of the places most day trippers don’t see.

This is Catalan Bay, a tiny village on the east side of the rock, that until the last century was unreachable except by sea. It was originally populated by Genoese fishermen, and still retains its independent sense of community. The fishing boats go out daily, and are the main supply for our restaurants. Eating here is an absolute joy.

There are really british aspects that stand out here, like the telephone boxes, which make you feel like you are stepping back in time by about fifty years. There are post boxes here that date back to Victorian times, I will capture those for you.

The original city walls date back to a time when this was a moorish stronghold. In fact the name Gibraltar comes from Gibral Tarik, meaning Tarik’s Seat, the moorish ruler at the time. The bloke on the right? Oh yeah, that’s Nelson. His remains were brought here in a  barrel of rum, onboard H.M.S. Pickle, after he died during the Battle of Trafalgar.

And this is in the Trafalgar Cemetery, which contains the remains of those that lost their life in that battle, and also those who died in an epidemic plague that followed shortly afterwards. Sounds a bit mad, but it is a beautiful cemetery! Ok so that’s the first of many! Not my normal type of post, but I really wanted people to know about this place, because it is really very special for a tiny isthmus! Oh, and for those of you that were expecting apes? Yes, we have them. Yes, they look cute. They are not!! They have teeth!! They steal!! And beat up small dogs!! (Ok, I may have made that last bit up, but they is nasty!!) But just for you, a picture!!