Gibraltar Part 1
264 miles, 21.8mpg
It was a real shame to have to leave Monsaraz as it really was lovely - I'd definitely like to come back and visit again in the future.
It's very close to the border so we were soon in Spain for the 2nd time this trip. The roads in Portugal between Lisbon and the border had been pretty good, and while the ones in Spain between the border and Seville were mostly not bad it did incorporate the very worst road of the trip! This was quite a few miles of what felt like driving on corrugated iron and felt like it was going to shake the motorhome to bits!
On the way we skirted Seville which had us playing the song Spanish Train (which mentions the city) a few times as we passed by. I've heard it's a nice place to visit so it's on our to-do list for the future. At 264 miles this was one of the longer driving days of the trip, but the roads were mostly decent and traffic not too bad so we made good progress to the South.
Most motorhomes visiting Gibraltar tend to use what looks like a very decent Aire at the marina just over the border in Spain (there isn't anywhere to overnight a motorhome in Gib although some folks will take theirs in to take advantage of the very cheap fuel there), but we decided to go to use a small campsite that was in the town of La Linea which is on the Spanish side of the border called Camping Sureuropa. It turned out to be a small but well kept campsite with a few cats wandering around (so no dogs are allowed). It's a bit tight with a bigger motorhome, and our van only just fitted into the pitch we were given, but it's close to the beach and fairly close to Gibraltar (easily cycle-able although we got a taxi).
We planned to go into Gibraltar a couple of times and on this first day we mostly walked around to get our bearings - and that included walking most of the way up the rock which Fiona whined a bit about given we could have used the cable-car!
The place is a very interesting mix of British and Spanish and did reminder me of other colonial throwbacks we'd visited such as Hong Kong and Macau. We lunched in a very English pub and also ticked one of the boxes we had down to do in Gibraltar, which was for me to get a haircut while we were somewhere English speaking!
On the rock we encountered the Barbary apes and also spotted the other Pillar of Hercules - on the African side.
On the way back we visited Morrisons and spend a fair amount replenishing our suppliers - including of booze which was very cheap!