Monkey Business

Apes´ Den in Gibraltar



Gibraltar


We had a great week in Marbella. The weather was perfect...25-30 degrees celsius every day with barely a cloud in the sky. Most of our week was spent relaxing at Cristina´s place and on the beach with a little bit of sightseeing.

We went to Gibraltar, a colony of Great Britain, for a quick day trip. Gibraltar is basically a big rock with a town on it. It´s 8 square kilometres with about 30,000 people and growing as they continue to add man-made land to it. We took a 1.5 hour van tour of the colony as it was a little scary to drive around. We could see Africa from Gibraltar and toured St. Michael´s Cave, the Apes´ Den where one of the 300 wild monkeys sat on Melissa´s shoulder to pick off some popcorn that the tourguide had strategically placed, and the Great Siege Tunnels that were built to defend Gibraltar.

Now we are in Granada. Yesterday we visited the Alhambra, which consists of Arab Palaces built in the 13th century. The detail on the walls and ceilings was amazing and not something that can be easily described - you just have to visit it. The nearby Generalife gardens, designed for the recreation of the Arab monarchs before the moors were driven out of Spain, were also beautiful. We could literally "smell the roses" as we walked through the gardens.

Tonight we´re catching the night train to Barcelona, which should be interesting and another first for us as we´ve never taken a night train.