My Spanish Holiday- Part 2

View from the apartment.


On arriving at Malaga airport, my daughter Sophie and her boyfriend M met us and drove us to their apartment. We travelled along the coast road that heads for Marbella and Cadiz, it's known as "Death Road". I must say I was shocked when I read the overhead gantry message


" 1824 killed on this road since January", it's a long road, but that is an awful lot of people to be killed! Surely there must be some mistake in the translation, should it read "casualties" rather than "killed", but Sophie informed me it was definitley fatalities............................by the time we returned to the airport less than a week later the sign had increased to 1848. That is some dangerous road, I was petrified to be on it.





Now of course I am worrying about Sophie & M as they travel on it quite regularly, drivers seem to be oblivious to all other car uses and take huge risks.





It was a relief on Saturday when we drove to visit Gibraltar that we were able to take the Toll roads, so much quieter and less dangerous, albeit expensive.


I was fascinated by Gibraltar, as I had heard so much about it, my mother's brother, Uncle Verdun was stationed on Gibraltar for part of the war, before he was taken Prisoner by the Germans and he had told my Mum and I such fascinating stories. My Mum managed to visit there a few years ago and was able to show my Uncle the photographs , it was one of the last times she saw him before he died. He was delighted that she had been there and was surprized how little had changed in 50 years.


So I was determined to see for myself, M kindly drove Sophie , Lucy and I there, we had read in the guide book that it is better to park in Spain and walk across and it is harder getting back through Passport control , but we found ourselves in the wrong lane and next we know the Security at the border are checking our passports and waving us into Gibraltar! Suddenly we could see English Policemen, and Red post boxes, Red Telephone Boxes, and "£" signs instead of Euros. It was surreal!


We parked the car at the first available car Park and then the only way into Gibraltar is to walk across the Airport Runway, yes, I do mean that, we walked across the "runway", if a plane is landing or taking off barriers come down and red lights flash like on level crossings!! Most bizarre!





Then we walked through the Landport Tunnel, originally the only entrance into the Town. Every where has a kind of shabbiness to it, it seems to be a bit stuck in time. Not at all like main Spain.


It was very weird finding all our favourite British Shops.....Marks and Spencer, British Home Stores, and much to Sophie's pleasure La Senza, she is fed up with Spanish stores not selling bras for anyone more then a "b" cup, she needs a much bigger size than that! so I had to treat her to a very pretty new bra! But at least now she knows where to come when she needs new underwear!

Leaving Gibraltar was harder than arriving, we found ourselved in a very long queue of cars all heading for passport control, the queue moved very slowly as cars were checked and items bought looked at. The Security seemed to check any car which appeared to have non Spanish or non Gibraltan registrations. Luckily we were ok as we were in a Spanish Hire car and after a brief check of our passports we were waved back through into Spain.





That's about all for the moment, things to do, places to go etc!