I’ve always had a romantic notion about the rock called Gibraltar because my second husband proposed that we marry there since we wanted to do it in Spain but Spanish bureaucracy made that near impossible. We took an excursion out to the rock while in Zahara de los Atunes – five cars of Spaniards – what a trip! We stopped at this restaurant to have a typical Catalunian or Andalusian breakfast (it was highly debatable where the tradition came from) made of toast, olive oil and tomatoes. It was a beautiful hotel on the road with a dining room that overlooked an oasis of flowering trees and a glimmering turquoise pool but we didn’t sit in that room, no we sat in a dark and stuffy ante room the result of having too many chiefs and no Indians making the decisions.
Although we all ordered the same thing with the only variance being white or wheat bread, the confusion in delivering our breakfast was tantamount to a Monty Python skit. And during the entire ordeal, replete with Tin throwing up his breakfast of muesli and yogurt from before the car ride, I kept wondering where the tomato was since all I had on my plate that I finally got was toast with a packet of olive oil that I sprinkled on.
Then we headed to Gibraltar where we were off to see the island, see the monkeys who live there, and do a little shopping. Well the park where the monkeys are was a bigger fiasco than the restaurant – we had a map and two generals between Anna and Manolo – who would stop and consult the map every five minutes pausing the entire caravan. Tatjana pointed out later that the map contained three things on it – monkey, cave and castle – and again I noticed we were a living comedy skit.
The monkeys were on a road where we just pulled over and watched them dig in the trash – one little black baby was about the cutest thing in the world but otherwise we watched the monkeys pull out a bottle of Tonic and some juice and try to drink from the containers. Then we went to the cave and saw the cannons and let Tin run up and down the narrow and dark walkways. We skipped the castle needless to say.
Then we went to have lunch but because of all the kids who wanted Subway or Burger King (yes that’s right), we opted to break apart in smaller groups and our group was lured into a restaurant by a gorgeous dark skinned Brazilian woman who, of course, wanted to eat Tin up. Luckily this was one of the few places we would find that had a kid’s high chair and Tin settled in a big meal of chicken curry that the Spaniards were amazed to see him eat. Later, we did a little shopping – I found a very cute dress.
All in all I would say skip Gibraltar – it’s overcrowded, touristy, and not as romantic as it may seem.