Popular Port

We awoke this morning to the sound of fog horns which signified that the weather today may be different.

Under cover of the fog the cruise ship "Celebrity Reflection" with 3046 passengers on board arrived in Gibraltar. With two liners in yesterday and this one today it had me checking around the internet to see how frequently Gibraltar was a destination for cruise liners.

This year there will be 251 liners in port disgorging 419,762 passengers into the city - clearly this is a significant boost to the local economy as apart from the retail spend the majority will purchase a tour of The Rock to view the monkeys!

At the northern end of town is the port and airport with the airport being around 100m from Ocean Village - whilst we were in the area a plane landed

and while the noise would have awoken the dead I guess the local high rise living residents and those in the nearest hotel may well be immune to the noise

Not the Celebrity Reflection but the impressive Sunborn hotel

By late morning the fog had been burnt off and the temperature quickly rose to what appears to be normal for this time of the year (low 30s) and the crowds started to fill the outside tables in Cashmate's Square

We stopped off at glass factory in the square, watched a glass blower make a vase and had a look at the many rather nice finished products in the attached retail shop

Throughout our trip in areas of high foot traffic there have been buskers, accordion players, the lads in Córdoba, others making large bubbles to amuse kids and those who mesmerise passersby by acting like statues.

In Main Street there was one who made out he was riding a motorcycle by holding onto the handle bar only and levitating above the seat

When you are on holiday it seems to me that you start to see things differently, perhaps not differently but your mind is uncluttered by the day to day trivia and you (or at least I) become more inquisitive or things click into place in the head.

As we sat on the balcony last night around 9pm (7am NZ time) watching the sunset it dawned on us that as the sun dropped below the horizon those in NZ would be seeing the sun rising above their horizon - so while we are 12,000 miles apart we would both be seeing the same thing at the same time!

Did gibraltarboard originate in Gibraltar?