European Circle Tour Part 10: The Not-so-Solid Rock

Remember the slogan, "Strong as the Rock of Gibraltar"? Thank you, Prudential of America, which no longer uses such slogans but still keeps its corporate logo with a stylized picture of the famous Rock. The logo is based on a picture showing the Rock as seen from the north end and looking down the east side.

 

Here's how it looks from the cruise terminal on the western shore, which is where you find most of the people and all of the shipping facilities. It was still early morning, but unlike my last visit, the entire western face of the Rock is pretty much visible. The weather got much clearer as the day went on.

 

Our guide, a long-time Gibraltarian like most of the tour guides here, related how many visitors will ask questions like, "How many people live on the island?" Since there is ocean everywhere you go, it's easy to forget that Gibraltar is attached to the mainland area of Spain. A reminder: here, just across the Bay to the west is the Spanish port city of Algeciras.

 

 

Here's a map to help you see the whole layout of the Rock and the Straits area.

 

 

For myself, I got a bit of a chuckle out of a member of our small tour party who kept asking, "Where is the Rock? When do we see the Rock?" It took him a fair chunk of the morning to finally catch the concept that we had been driving and walking all over the Rock for the entire time. 

 

In ancient myth and lore, the prominent limestone crag of Gibraltar was renowned as one of the two "Pillars of Hercules." The other, a much taller mountain called Jebel Musa (the Mountain of Moses) is on the south side of the strait. The two Pillars are marked on the map with the red blocks.

 

Since it's all limestone, the Rock of Gibralter is very porous, full of natural cracks and crevices and caves. Many of these were expanded by British Army Engineers during the centuries since Gibraltar came under British control in the early 1700s as part of a peace treaty. More tunnels were excavated during World War II, and still more opened up since the end of the war. The latest one is a tunnel that plunges down under the single runway of Gibraltar airport (which is parallel to the border with Spain), coming up on the other side in Spain itself. Last time I was here, the highway link to the Spanish border was still on ground level, right across the runway, and had to be closed every time a plane landed or took off!

 

Our ship itself encountered a similar problem when we were ready to depart at 5:00pm. The problem: there was a plane scheduled to take off right about that time, and it was basically impossible for the ship to move and pivot away from the pier without getting right into the flight path and just off the end of the runway -- which is actually extended into the ocean on both sides of the peninsula. Wherever you go in Gibraltar, space is always at a premium and the damn Rock keeps getting in the way!

 

Most of the highrise buildings you see in my photos are built on filled land. More fresh land is being created all the time (our guide showed us another rock-fill project just beginning). The only way for Gibraltar to grow is for the land mass below the Rock to expand. In this picture, you see two ships at the cruise port, some highrise apartments on the newer part of the reclaimed shoreline, and a plane lifting into the air from the runway (look at the cropped second picture to zoom in on the plane).

 

 

Our tour began with a scenic drive all around the Rock, with a couple of brief stops for photos. Driving south on the west side we got a good view of the entirely artificial harbour. Several of the ships appearing here are actually waiting for their turn to be drydocked for repairs.

 

After passing through a bit of the Old Town area, we headed on south, and soon had to go through a couple of very old and very tight tunnels. Good thing that tours in Gibraltar use mainly British sized 24-passenger mini-buses. A regular highway coach would never get through this one.

 

Beyond the tunnel, we passed by a sizable Lido, one of several artificial beaches on the west side of the Rock. It's a popular facility with locals and tourists during the warmer summer months.

 

Nearby was this spectacular but artificial waterfall, which our guide said was used for the unnecessary overflow of water supply from a water distillation plant. Like other places built on seaside limestone formations, the entire underpinning of Gibraltar is permeated with caverns full of salt water, so fresh water can only be obtained by manufacturing it from the sea.

 

Soon afterwards, we arrived at Europa Point, the southern tip of Gibraltar. The lighthouse, now automated, remains an essential navigation aid through the Straits of Gibraltar, the link between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. It's also an excellent place for peripatetic retired teachers to take selfies.

 

 

It was at this point that the real lucky breaks began, as the clouds south of us slowly lifted away to reveal a serious glimpse of Africa in the distance. The hill behind the left-hand ship is in Ceuta, while the dark slopes rising into the clouds above the chimney are the lower slopes of Jebel Musa.

 

If you turn away from the view of Africa, and look north, you see the southern end of the Rock, and a stately mosque. It's as true in Gibraltar as in Ceuta, that you can't visit a community in the area of the Straits without encountering Arab and Spaniard and English and Christian and Muslim and Jew all mixed together. And they're not the only ones.

Driving north up the east side of the Rock (the sheer-cut side with near-vertical alignment), we had to drop into a lengthy tunnel to pass under or behind a sizable scientific establishment embedded in the rock faces.

 

A little farther north, we came to a beachfront community whose brilliant colours give it a distinctly Italian look. Again, not surprising. This Italian community may be small, but it's been in Gibraltar for centuries, and the local population love their little bit of their original homeland which they've created and sustained here.

 

Also on this side are some more areas of reclaimed land, and some sizable residential towers, which are deliberately planned by the government of Gibraltar as a reduced-cost housing measure to help younger people get into a highly-inflated housing market. As our guide explained it, the government advances half the cost of the unit while the buyer puts in the other half. At sale time, each takes half the proceeds of the sale. I'd be interested to hear in 20 years or so how this strategy has worked out.

 

In no time, we were back at the north end, and crossing the narrow strip of flat land between Rock and airport to get back to town on the west side. There, we attended the highlight of our tour, a "wine tasting" of three different wines from nearby Spanish wineries. "Tasting" in quotation marks because they were pouring the wine with a generous hand in all three glasses. I think I likely inhaled somewhere in the area of 15-16 ounces in 45 minutes or so! The restaurant also provided plates of cold meat and flavourful Manchegan cheese to buffer all that wine, a real delight. This event took place in a new recreation and cultural centre built into an old and disused fortification, the King's Bastion. After the tasting, we got a quick look at another part of the facility. The tasting took place in a similar barrel-vaulted hall.

 

With that, we headed back to the ship and a quiet afternoon aboard. But there was one more treat in store as we sailed at 5:20 pm (after waiting for that plane to take off!). This was something I'd never seen before, and I suspect many other visitors never have seen either: Gibraltar, fully visible, in blazing sunshine. What a bonus!

 

It got even better, as ships must move fairly slowly in these busy waters, for safety reasons. I'd gone back inside to get dinner. When I came out on deck after dinner, we were just gliding nicely through the middle of the Straits, with the two Pillars of Hercules slipping slowly away behind us: Gibraltar to starboard...

 

 ... and Jebel Musa to port, as we set course for the open Atlantic.

 

 

 

European Circle Tour Part 9: A Great and Mighty Wonder

Our third port call was at Barcelona, a city which I have visited and enjoyed before. This visit showed that Barcelona isn't always the sunny spectacle which online photos would have you believe. I tried going out on deck for a while after breakfast, and I got one brief sunny break between showers -- but it was still windy and chilly. Definitely not "Sunny Catalonia!"

 

During one brief moment in the morning when there was a bit of sun before the rain, I stepped out on deck and took these two pictures. Check out all the lined-up taxis and tour coaches outside our terminal -- and then multiply that by five times for the five cruise ships in harbour in Barcelona that day. 

The unfavourable state of weather continued until about 2:30 in the afternoon. By that time, many passengers had given up and were slogging back onboard, wet, chilled, and unhappy. And this is where I got my lucky break. My tour was leaving at 3:15 pm, and in fact actually left about 5 minutes early because all 17 passengers on a full-size tour coach had already joined the party. Nice -- the least crowded tour I think I've ever been on in my entire cruise career. But we didn't stop in Barcelona. We drove right through the city and out into the Catalan countryside on one of the main highways.

 

This was our destination:

 

Photo by Josep Relalias -- own work.

This extraordinary jagged mountain (mountain range is perhaps more accurate) is called Montserrat -- the Catalan name comes very close to the English translation of "serrated mountain." The highest peak of the range stands 1,236 metres (4,055 feet). Yes, there are taller mountains in many places. But since Montserrat rises with almost no preliminary ascent straight up out of the Catalonian coastal plains, the relative height as you approach it seems much greater.

 

I wasn't at all surprised when we had arrived in one of the deep canyons, and our guide told us that this place, this mountain, had been a site of sacred activity time out of mind. It's a powerful, dramatic landscape. The power seemed to me to manifest in an an irresistible urge to look up, to direct your eyes towards the sky where so many religions have placed the abode of divine power. You don't even have to be especially religious to want to follow the classic phrase from Psalm 121, "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills." Montserrat will likely find you doing just that. It certainly had that impact on me, the instant I stepped off our coach.

 

 

Our actual destination was a monastery, built onto a sizable ledge of rock between two of the higher peaks. The Benedictine Monastery and Sanctuary of Santa Maria has existed here in one form or another at least since the 1200s (confirmed by an official survey) and is reputed by tradition to have been around since the 800s. Due to the frequent and surging tides of warfare in this region so close to the Pyrenees, the monastic buildings have been destroyed and rebuilt on multiple occasions. What you see today is almost entirely constructed in the 20th century. It's still an active monastery.

 

 In addition to the monastery proper, there is a music school, an assortment of shops and restaurants, and three mountain railways: one rising to the crest of the peak on the left in the last picture, one dropping down a short way to a chapel in a deep valley, and the third -- the newest -- going all the way to the base of the mountain to make for easier access. That newest railway is the ideal access to Montserrat for anyone nervous about driving or being driven on narrow, twisting mountain roads.

 

Different places along the road and walkway from the parking areas to the monastery proper offer some spectacular views looking down from the mountain as well.

 

Our visit included a tour of the monastery itself. We were first taken into the courtyard which faces the main facade of the church.

 

 

Before entering the church proper, we went up a narrow winding staircase to view the pilgrimage shrine, housing the Virgin of Montserrat, an old carving in wood of the Virgin and Child. Based on the style and features, the statue is believed to date from the early medieval period, before the year 1000. The faces and hands are believed to have become discoloured and blackened over the centuries by chemical reactions to paint or by smoke, and have been covered over or touched up on several occasions with black paint. Many Catholics, and even Catalans who are not conventionally religious, venerate the Virgin of Montserrat's miraculous interventions. She is the patron saint of the Montserrat monastery, together with Sant Jordi (Saint George), and Catalans refer to her affectionately as La Moreneta ("the Little Dark One").

 

In front of her is a glass window facing out over the nave of the abbey church. 

 

 

In this interior view from the rear of the church, you can see the window with the Virgin of Montserrat in the background, high above and behind the main altar of the church.

 

We also attended a brief audio-visual show about the nature of the monastery, the life of the monks, the choir school, and other aspects of this community.

 

There's a strong legendary link between Montserrat and the tradition of the Holy Grail, a relationship emphasized in Richard Wagner's final and most mystical opera, Parsifal. Wagner even designed the sets for his hall of the Holy Grail Castle based on the design of the Montserrat church.

 

I would have loved to ride the funicular up to the high ridge above the monastery and back, but it's rather slow and runs only three times an hour, and I was afraid I wouldn't have enough time before I would need to be back at the bus. However, here's an internet photo which shows the entire complex viewed from the upper end of the funicular line.

 

By Richard Schneider - aufgenommen, fotografiert von Richard Schneider, CC BY-SA 3.0, httpscommons.wikimedia.orgwindex.phpcurid=587310

 

Our start time for the drive back to the Barcelona cruise port was 7:00 pm, and it could have taken quite a while if the traffic had been bad. It wasn't. We whipped right through the city and down to the cruise port with no delays at all, and arrived beside the ship in 59 minutes. That meant we were actually early enough for me to do a quick change and have a proper dinner in the restaurant, as usual!

 

The monastery of Santa Maria de Montserrat is a truly remarkable institution in a truly remarkable place. I'm very glad I took the opportunity to go there and see both the mountains and the shrine for myself.

 

European Circle Tour Part 8: Safe Harbour

Our second port of the cruise was at the large natural harbour of Toulon, in southern France. To be exact, we were docked across the harbour at the commercial port of La Seyne-sur-Mer, and access to Toulon proper was by a daylong shuttle boat. In a first for my cruise experiences, the use of the boat shuttle was not free. The fare, charged to your shipboard account, was US$35. However, passengers who had purchased tours in Toulon from Princess Cruises were excused from paying that fare. The little things they don't tell you ahead of time can sometimes add up to big added expenses. In this case, if you bought your own tour you could very well end up losing money unless your tour was at least $35 cheaper per person than the tour sold by Princess.

 

So why dock on the other side of the bay? There's no place in Toulon. There's a ferry terminal for the large oceangoing ferries sailing to Corsica or Sardinia, but almost all the rest of Toulon's waterfront is occupied by the Mediterranean headquarters of the French Navy. 

The tour I selected had 2 parts -- first, a scenic boat tour around the bay, and second, a walking tour in the old city centre of Toulon. The boat tour was the real prize here, not least because the weather was absolutely perfect for such a purpose.

 

This first main group of photos include pictures taken on the tour boat. To start with, I have to prove that I was there, of course -- but why was I grinning?

 

Maybe it was because I had spotted the sign in French identifying the bin full of life jackets?

 

 

 As we sailed out into the bay, we got a look at the rest of the commercial traffic docked here. As our guides explained, Marseilles is the main commercial cargo port on this coast. Toulon/La Seyne gets only a few smaller cargo ships.

 

 

We got a series of views of Emerald Princess as we slowly curved around the pier to head towards the naval dockyard across the bay. I'll let you decide what is her best angle.

 

By this time, we were approaching the row of piers docking the naval ships. First up was the flagship of the French fleet, the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle.

 

 Other naval ships of various types followed in succession.

 

At the end of the naval dockyard, there's a narrow inlet which leads to the city's waterfront, with its waterfront promenade, cafes, shops, and the piers for the shuttle boats -- including ours. Beyond that inlet is the pier for the big seagoing ferries. These ships, almost like cruise liners in themselves, take 8 hours or more to make the crossing from Toulon to ports in Corsica, and in the Italian island of Sardinia. There are ample numbers of private cabins for the overnight voyages.

 

We then moved further south towards the entrance of the bay. Most of the entrance is blocked by a long breakwater, leaving only one deep-water channel. Ships entering this channel sail west past the end of the breakwater, and then have to turn sharply north -- and all under the stern gaze of several stone forts, one of which is shown here.

 

After that we headed back to the Toulon waterfront, and docked at the shuttle pier. Our three guides then divided us into 3 groups for the walking tour of the old town. The first intriguing sight was a building dating from the early twentieth century whose builder incorporated this ornamental doorway from the older building which preceded it.

 

This broad plaza facing the water marked the beginning of the markets. After these merchants of clothes and other assorted goods in the first block, the next three blocks going up the hill were devoted to all sorts of food products.

 

Beyond the markets, we walked through other streets where many of the buildings featured elegant, even artistic railings on their balconies.

 

Toulon has a number of famous fountains in the old town. These were the two which we saw.

 

On a large plaza well up the hill from the water, we saw this theatre now devoted to the opera company, and currently undergoing some repairs.

 

We then walked downhill, back to the main road along the waterfront, and there we saw the historic main gate of the naval dockyard. It is now the entrance to the Maritime Museum. 

 

 

Our tour was meant to include a visit to the museum, but this was closed because we were there on May 1, which is Labour Day in France. That also meant we had to take a detour at one point in our walking tour to avoid a parade going on along the boulevard which separates the old town from the more recent parts.

 

At this point, we were free to spend more time in town, but I chose to head back to the ship for lunch. There, I got some views from the upper decks of the harbour area, the city, the docks, and the mountains which loom up as backdrop to the entire scene.

 

 

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