Gibraltar - a weird but cool British outpost in southern Spain

We spent a day visiting Gibraltar, a 30 minute drive from the house we rented in Tarifa, at the southern tip of Spain. In fact, Gibraltar is a 2.5 square mile rock outcropping at the southern tip of Europe. It's also oddly British - a fact that still causes some tension between Britain and Spain. At the rock of Gibraltar, Morocco is only 10 km away and is clearly visible across the Strait of Gibraltar, an obviously important and highly trafficked shipping channel for any boats leaving the Mediterranean and heading eastwards.

Gibraltar had three major highlights.

The first was the British atmosphere. While Spain has been fantastic, it was fun having a day long escape. We spent much of it eating amazing fish and chips and watching the final round of the British Open in an English pub. We also walked around a little bit down the small but British feeling town, complete with classic red English phone booths. Finally, there were tons of red-faced Brits speaking the Queen's English.

The second highlight were the macaques - the only wild primates in Europe. About 300 macaques, basically tailless apes that look like monkeys, roam in five tribes around the rock of Gibraltar. They are very used to human tourists though, and enjoyed running all around and over our cars, grabbing anything they could find (including a bathing suit out of the trunk), and generally entertaining us.

Finally, the rock of Gibraltar and the views were pretty cool. Most people know the rock from the Prudential advertisements. It is both imposing in itself and also has really cool views back towards Spain and also across the water towards Morocco. It feels a lot like the Cape of Good Hope to me, with a long high rock outcropping in a narrow peninsula out into the water. We finished the day with a tricky scramble up the rock to the highest point in Gibraltar, which would have been much easier in shoes instead of flimsy flip-flops.