Day out to Gibraltar

I have been to Gibraltar a few times in the past, mainly to get lots of things from Mothercare when I was expecting my baby. To be honest, I didnt like it. I thought it was like England 30 years ago, old fashioned and quite dirty.

The only thing I liked about it was when we took a trip up the Rock to see the Monkeys which was brilliant fun, being a monkey fan! So if you like monkeys or have kids, then this is a must.

You can drive, or take a tour up there. Anyway, I went there the other day and actually, it wasnt that bad. The sun was out and it actually looked quite nice. A few new restaurants have opened, along with some smart shops like Tommy Hilfiger and the familiar shops like TopShop, Next, MotherCare and even Marks & Spencers, which has really improved and now has a small food section.

I knew people that went there every week to do their shopping at Morrisons and I could never really understand it as you can get more or less everything here in Spain and its cheaper. However, there is something nice about the familiarity of the brands and the English way of sizing of clothes. My favourite was M&S Food Section, although, when you convert it back into euros, its actually quite expensive. Driving to Gibralter from Nueva Andalucia takes around 50 mins

If you park outside Gibralter in la Linea. There is a McDonalds and the streets around there are Pay & Display, so make sure you have plenty of change. You then can walk through the border REMEMBER YOUR PASSPORTS, and can catch a bus into the centre or walk which is about 15 minutes.

If you drive on, you need to get into the right hand lane and get into the queue. Sometimes the queue is quite long and could take up to an hour or more even to get through. To leave Gibralter, you will have to queue up again which could take up to an hour.

After our experience of driving on and queuing up to leave Gibralter for nearly 2 hours, I just park outside and walk through.