Gibraltar and Morocco Were Fantastic - Now On To Oxford and London - Lulu's turn To Shine

Video 1 - Our plane landing in Gibraltar crossing the highway as we watched. It is fun watching the plane pass right in front of you at about 150 MPH. See the cars and pedestrians waiting at the gates.


Video 2 - I took this video from the plane as we did a complete circle around The Rock on the way to London - stay with the video to the end.

It is Sunday afternoon - we are on the jet from Gibraltar to London. We left Tallahassee Wednesday - it sure has been busy since then.

Wednesday night was spent in the plane from Atlanta to London. Usually Lulu finds us seats in an exit row which gives you some leg room to stretch. This time we were stuck in regular seats - I did not sleep the whole night.



Most of the time in London on Thursday was dark either from cloudy overcast or night. We did take the tube downtown and enjoyed some Christmas lights. We spent Thursday night at a hotel by the airport because on Friday morning we flew to Gibraltar. It is a spectacular view watching your plane come down by that giant rock and land crossing over the highway to the mainland. It was sunny and 60s when we landed - so we walked the 2 miles or so to our Hotel Elliot. Then we went to the top of The Rock on a cable car - it  was nearly closing time at 6 PM - so we were to the top alone - unless you count the 30 or so monkeys we saw there. They are pretty bold and known to pick pocket people - stealing cameras and purses.

Friday night we stayed up to see the live computer report from the FSU volleyball game. We beat Alabama and advanced to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament.

Saturday morning we woke at 6 - had breakfast at our hotel - then took one cab to Spain - then a second cab to Tarifa to catch our jet ferry to Tangiers. The whole round trip from Gibraltar across the Mediterranean Seas to Tangiers cost about $500 for the two of us. That included 4 cabs - 2 ferries - and our tour guide in Morocco. It was an inexpensive way to add so much to our trip - African continent - Morocco - Spain - Strait of Gibraltar - Pillars of Hercules - all in about 14 hours.

We got back to our Gibraltar hotel room at 8PM local time - then stayed up to see FSU football beating Georgia Tech from 2 AM to 6 AM. Then we slept until 10 AM - had breakfast and took a cab to the tunnels in the top of the Rock of Gibraltar. After that we walked all the way from the top of the mountain to the airport carrying our 4 bags. We each have a suitcase and a backpack.

Gibraltar has been owned and operated by England for 300 years. They won it in a war with Spain and France around 1805. It is now an independent country - but still has all the British stores and restaurants. The cars travel on the right hand side of the road - like in America. I’ll bet when it was an English colony they drove on the left hand side of the road.

The main highlight for me is the airport. There is only one runway - and it crosses the main highway entering the peninsula. It looks like there is about 5 commercial flights a day. The terminal is new and modern - mostly glass - with panoramic views of The Rock. It is also fun getting on the jets by walking up old step ramps. Since it is the farthest point south in Europe - Brits love to come here for sunshine.

I plan to slow down on the rest of the trip. We will spend 3 nights in Oxford and 2 nights in London - then come home.

Our next big adventure is Lulu doing a presentation at Oxford. She is working hard on her presentation as I type. She is primping her slides and practicing her presentation. She will meet a lot of other interesting academics from all over the world. For an educator it is a big deal presenting in Oxford - this place has been a college town for almost 1000 years! I was tempted to bring along her cap and gown so that she wears it around like Laurel and Hardy in their movie about going to college in Oxford.