Back in the UK briefly

Scott-Free’s blog
Steve & Chris
Fri 18 Jul 2008 20:47
It's difficult to decide what we think of Gibraltar.  It is an odd place.  We have done some of the tourist stuff - been to the top of the Rock, seen the monkeys, been in the caves and tunnels.  The main street is lined with shops, many of which sell booze & tobacco, perfumes or cameras. The same stuff, repeated time and time again as you walk down the street.  It is oddly familiar in places as you pass M&S, BhS, Next, TopShop and of course, Subway (yes, Kerrie, they have them here too!)
 
Three days in a row big ocean liners came in and the main street swarmed with their passengers. 
 
Everywhere you look, there are new buildings in differing stages of completion- it's like one big building site.  The marina itself is being developed, and soon the boats will be completely surrounded by buildings.  It sounds like a building site too, from early in the morning.  The other day it rained, and when it stopped the boat was filthy.
 
It has been interesting to visit, but it's not on our list of places to go back to - other than for an overnight stop if needed when passing.
 
One positive - the marina fees are half those of Spain, so we left Scott-Free there and flew back on Wednesday to the UK to sort out Steve's Dad's estate.  We just hope it doesn't rain too much there while we are away!
 
We arrived at Gibraltar airport in good time to check in (it wasn't exactly far to go!), then sat in the departure lounge and watched as the incoming flight tried twice to land then gave up and flew off.  Some time later an announcement told us that the plane had landed at Malaga, and after a further wait we were told we would all be bussed to Malaga to take off from there.  Eventually the coaches came in a convoy, and we all piled in. At the border, two minutes from the airport, we all piled out.  We had to take all our luggage through passport control and customs on foot - fortunately we had not bothered with duty free - and then pile back on the coaches again the other side.  An hour and a half later we arrived at Malaga where we waited half an hour for Easyjet to open check-in desks and we went through the whole check-in process all over again.  And passport control and customs for the third time.  We eventually took off at 23:00.  End of story?  No chance - we waited for an hour and a half at Gatwick to get our bags, and then discovered that the hire car office in the North Terminal closes at 22:00 so had to go to the South Terminal to collect the hire car.
 
We finally got to Ron's at 3:30 a.m.  Some journey!  We'll probably be in the UK for 10 days or so - depends on how much we get done - but it won't be much longer than that if we can help it as we are keen to get back...