Up early and out on the road to the Rock of Gibraltar. Gibraltar is a UK owned territory and so it felt VERY different than Spain. Which seems odd...but there you have it. We took a mini-bus tour of the "Top of The Rock," and it was a good thing we did because there was no way we could have figured it out on our own...and our bus driver was full of funny stories and facts.
We saw: St. Michael's Caves, a big natural cave with stalactites/mites.... and one of the caverns was even big enough for them to have concerts in there, how cool!! The Great Siege Tunnels, man-carved tunnels made as a war-time bunker. Sort of an odd thing to dig tunnels in this huge rock....but there were some neat views of the ocean.
Of course, we saw the only primates in Europe, the monkeys who live on the top of the rock. They are very domesticated (as there are loads of tourists, like us, who come up to see them everyday). One even sat on my shoulder, I was turning to Allison to get a picture when the girl behind me starts yelling "He's gonna poo! He's gonna poo! He pooed one you!!!" That's right folks, a monkey pooed on me. Luckily, (I guess) it was a firm poo and our tour guy just brushed it off. I definitely think I win the "Craziest Thing to Poop on You During Vacation" Award. :)
One of the cool things about Gibraltar is that it is only (something like) 11 km from Africa, so you can look across the strait to another continent. It was a bit foggy on the day we went....but we could still sort of see Africa, which was also cool. It is also cool because at the top of the rock you look to your left and see the Mediterranean and then look to your right and see the Atlantic. Neat!
That's about all there is to do in Gibraltar so we headed back to our room and we didn't even get lost this time. We made dinner and then went out to see if there was much nightlife in Malaga. Answer: No. So we watched some more movies and went to bed.
Next day was supposed to be a beach day...but it was POURING rain all day...so it ended up being a movie/couch day. Remember this week was our vacation from our vacation and we were all still getting over our colds...so we were supposed to be doing nothing. :) And we did a mighty, fine job of it!
The next day was a travel day. Up pretty early, drove to the airport, metro to the train station, train to Madrid, train to Barcelona. We had one night in Barcelona (and since we were sick the last time we were there) we decided to go out and have a true Spanish Night On The Town. :) And we did. We found a club called "Catwalk" right on the beach, crazy expensive drinks but good music. We had a good time...and we're out pretty late...and....it was good. :)
Next morning we walked to the bus station, had breakfast and saw the Arc De Triumf on the way. (Europeans are really into Arc's...I think this is the 4th or 5th one we've seen). Took the bus to Girona and then flew to Venice. We were flying Ryainair, which is a discount airline within Europe. The problem is, even though you can find flights for 1 cent, you never fly to the main airport, you end up a hour or so outside of the city you are trying to get to...and figuring out how to get in can be challenging.) So we got into "Venice" and then took a bus to the train station and then took another bus to our hostel/campground.
It is crazy expensive to stay in the actual city of Venice, so we were staying in a little cabin at a campground about 20 minutes from the city. It was actually a great place, it had it's own restaurant, bar, grocery store and pretty clean bathrooms/showers etc. So we settled in for the night after a passable meal at the restaurant.
I think I'll end there for now. Only 2 cities left to catch up on: Venice and Munich. And of course all the great things about life back up on the mountain!
Blessings,
KNL
No comments:
Post a Comment