Gibraltar through the Port Hole!

Visited Gibraltar on more Cruises than I can remember (and for a fortnight in 2010 - see the photos)! It's a must stop for just about every Cruise to the Med, mainly because of the duty free BUT it's a terrific place to visit anyway. Firstly the Island Tours have to be done, the apes are fascinating and there are plenty of other places of historic interest (especially if you're British!). The main street in the Town (less than a mile from the Port - free shuttle buses are not allowed by the local taxi / coachdriver's Union so a minibus costing a £1 each way is available) is also full of Historical interest, the Museum and Church are well worth a visit and, if you go far enough (beyond the shops) you'll reach the Trafalgar Cemetery. Not too many graves from the Battle of Trafalgar but many Military ones from around that period. Well worth a visit.
Quite near the Port there is now a Morrison's Supermarket so check here for duty free prices (a litre of Spanish Brandy in 2009 £3.29 - the Gibraltar pound is the currency but this is fixed to the GBP so Sterling is accepted everywhere).
Our agenda now for Gibraltar is duty free, a walk in the High Street and lunch (I know lunch is included onboard but there are certain places we like to eat locally and this is one of them). However, it seems that the time ashore is getting less on each Cruise (our Saga Ruby 2009 Cruise was onboard at 2PM and the QM2 2009 was onboard at 3PM). This is cutting down the time for lunch but we just have to eat early!
One more minus point about the QM2. Because of it's size it cannot dock and tenders have to be used. Tickets are required from the ship and we got ours at 9.30 and had to wait until 10.15 before we could go ashore. Coming back was even worse, we got to the Port at 1.15 and the queue was a couple of hundred yards long! Back on board shortly after 2.30. Not impressed.

Anyway, always said that we would like to stay at Gibraltar for a proper holiday so, in 2010, we booked for a couple of weeks in September at the Rock Hotel (the most famous and, arguably, the best). It was better than we could have imagined. Had visions of trips to Spain and North Africa but organised ones were expensive and we could buy 24 hour tickets on the local buses for about 80p so no contest! Did all the touristy things again and had the added bonus of Gibraltar Day being celebrated when we were there. A real outburst of National Pride, they are officially (I think) British but first and foremost Gibraltarian. This Nationalism was cemented by the Spanish closure of the border which created a sort of Siege mentality (not the first time Gibraltar has been under siege). More power to your elbow Gibraltar!