The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
No quarantine: just Rock up
Relaxed protocols and fewer tourists mean there has never been a better time to visit Gibraltar, says William Jacob Cook
‘Sit down,” said Brian Gomila – and I sat down, even though it was the last thing I felt like doing. We were surrounded by Barbary macaques: on the forest floor around us, in the trees above our heads. A female with an infant shuffled past, followed by several servile males – you could tell she was the one in charge. Now that I was sitting down, she seemed to loom above me and suddenly I felt vulnerable but, as Brian said, that didn’t matter. Making them feel safe around us was the most important thing.
Brian Gomila is a primatologist, born and raised in Gibraltar, and he had brought me up the Rock to see how Gibraltar’s monkeys behave when there are fewer tourists around. He takes people well off the beaten track, and only in small numbers, so his tours are far more intimate than the photo ops you see at the summit. Here you can observe the power struggles within the troop as these monkeys vie for social status. As Brian talked me through their routines and rituals, I realised that these animals are not so different from you and me.
This was my second trip to Gibraltar, and it felt very different from my first fleeting visit a few years ago. Back then, I thought I had seen most of what this compact peninsula has to offer. This time, I realised I had barely scratched the surface. Packed into a few square miles is an abundance of nature, culture and, above all, history. And with none of the usual cruise ship traffic, and other visitors scarce, there has never been a better time to go.
With no quarantine restrictions on arrival, or when you return to Britain, Gibraltar is easy to visit. Covid protocols have been rigorous, easier to enact in such a small community, so the territory has come through the crisis remarkably well, with only a handful of fatalities. You have to wear a mask in the city centre (even outdoors) but virtually everything is open. It isn’t bad going for one of the most densely populated places in the world.
Gibraltar is a world away from the old colonial stereotype. The Gibraltarians are British to the core and English is the lingua franca, but the people are a mix of British, Spanish, Italian, Maltese and Portuguese. Most are Roman Catholic, but there are also thriving Anglican, Jewish, Muslim and Hindu communities. A contemporary commercial centre with an antique core, “Gib” is a bustling, multicultural place.
The first thing that hits you when you arrive is the Rock itself. It’s incredibly dramatic, an immense shard of white limestone 1,400ft high, towering over the town. Wherever you are on the peninsula, it is a constant presence, one of the natural wonders of the Western world. At night, lit up by the lights below, it looks almost supernatural. You can see why the ancients regarded it as one of the twin Pillars of Hercules, a mountain made by an angry god.
The second thing that hits you is Gibraltar’s location – at the crossroads between Europe and Africa, the gateway between the Atlantic and the Med. Morocco is only nine miles away, and the straits in between are crowded with shipping: container vessels bound for Panama, ferries for Tangier…
Then there is the size. Gibraltar is only three miles long and less than a mile across, so you could walk around it in an afternoon. In any other place so small, you would soon go stir crazy – but the thing that makes Gib so absorbing is its colourful and violent past.
The best place to begin is the Gibraltar National Museum. Its permanent exhibition gives you an excellent overview of the territory’s complex heritage. There is fascinating information about the early human remains found here, in caves within the Rock, before the discoveries in Germany’s Neander valley gave us the term Neanderthal Man (he should really be called Gibraltar Man).
There are Stone Age and Bronze Age relics too, and Phoenician and Roman finds, but the finest exhibit is the Moorish bathhouse in the cellar beneath the museum. The Moors were here for 700 years, from the eighth to the 15th century, when they were driven out by the Spanish who ruled Gibraltar until 1704, when it was seized by the Royal Marines. It has been British ever since.
The history of the place is all around you, in the robust walls the British built to repel the Spanish, and in the cavernous gun emplacements they dug into the Rock itself. A crucial base in every conflict from the Napoleonic Wars to the Falklands War, Gibraltar is a monumental fortress, festooned with cannon at every turn.
The National Art Gallery boasts some charming impressionistic landscapes, and there are some splendid modern paintings in the John Mackintosh Hall. The old town is a cosy cluster of elegant Georgian villas and town houses, mainly built for the military but requisitioned for more convivial uses. The King’s Bastion, once the core of Gibraltar’s battlements, now houses a 10-pin bowling alley. My favourite spot is the Garrison Library, an officer’s club for the past two centuries, now open to the public. An oasis of calm and quiet in the centre of the city, its wood-panelled rooms and walled gardens are supremely peaceful. “That’s Gary, the Garrison Library cat,” said researcher Christopher Tavares, introducing me to a geriatric ginger stray snoozing on a comfy chair in the tranquil book-lined foyer. “He wandered in one day and never left.”
Gibraltar’s small scale is a big plus if you are only here for a long weekend.
You don’t waste time getting around, and as long as you are moderately fit you can reach most places on foot. There is a cable car up to the summit of the Rock, or you can walk up Mediterranean Steps, a vertiginous footpath with giddy views of the Med and the Atlantic. It is best to tackle it in good weather – and if you have a head for heights. Don’t miss the spectacular St Michael’s Cave either, a natural auditorium where concerts are performed.
There is a decent range of restaurants. Yes, you can get a good Sunday roast or fish and chips, or apple crumble or Eton mess, but there is Mediterranean fare too. I stayed at the Caleta Hotel – a homely four-star on a beach on the east side of the peninsula – but for somewhere more glitzy, try the Sunborn, a state-of-the-art five-star hotel on a cruise ship in the harbour.
I finished my trip at the Rock Hotel, an art deco triumph near the botanical gardens. Ernest Hemingway and Alec Guinness stayed there. I could imagine them drinking cocktails together in the sunlit bar, in the opening scene of an Agatha Christie whodunnit or a Graham Greene film noir. I had a delicious lunch – ravioli, sea bream, and a glass of sauvignon blanc – but the best thing was the view.
I watched the boats criss-crossing the blue water, and reflected on what makes Gibraltar special. It will always be British, I’m sure, but despite its quaint Home Counties customs it is cosmopolitan. That is its main appeal.
The first thing that hits you when you arrive is the Rock itself. It’s incredibly dramatic