About Gibraltar:
Located at the southern tip of Spain, and nicknamed “The Rock”, Gibraltar is a British Overseas Territory. Small in size (2.6 square miles) and with a 3/4 mile-wide border with Spain, its strategic location at the mouth of the Mediterranean has given it immense importance in regulating trade. The Moors occupied Gibraltar for over 750 years, from 711 AD to 1462 AD, with a brief interruption. Led by Tariq ibn Ziyad, they first landed in 711 AD and established control, fortifying the Rock in 1160. While mostly under Muslim rule, the Christians held control from 1309 AD to 1333 AD, before the Moors regained. The Moors occupation was permanently ended by the Spanish in 1462, and Queen Isabella I annexed Gibraltar to Spain in 1501. Then, in 1704, during the War of the Spanish Succession, Sir George Rooke captured Gibraltar for the British, and Spain formally ceded it to Britain in 1713 under the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht.
Gibraltar still has traces of Spanish rule in both its architecture and churches.
An interesting fixture on the island are the Barbary macaque monkeys throughout the island. Barbary macaque monkeys is a species native to the Atlas Mountains of Morocco, in north Africa. These monkeys likely arrived in Gibraltar through human introduction, either brought as pets by Moors (Berbers) during their rule (711–1492) or by early British occupiers around 1704.
to find ways to Drincrease the macaque population and “maintain it thereafter”. During World War II, Winston Churchill famously found time to leave his war-room duties to order the colonial secretary driven by a local legend that “as long as the monkeys remain on Gibraltar, the territory will remain British,” Churchill took action when the population dwindled to just seven individuals during the war. On September 2, 1944, concerned by reports that the macaques were dying out, Churchill sent a formal, urgent directive to the Colonial Secretary. He ordered that the, “establishment of the apes on Gibraltar should be twenty-four, and every effort should be made to reach this number as soon as possible and maintain it thereafter”.
Reinforcements were ordered from Morocco and Algeria, and they were, according to some reports, handled with the same care as military supplies to ensure their survival on the Rock. The action was intended not just to satisfy the superstition, but to bolster the morale of both the troops stationed at the strategic outpost and the local civilian population. This intervention cemented the reputation of the Barbary macaques as a protected “military” concern, with the British Army caring for them directly until 1991.
Today, the Barbary macaques in Gibraltar are the only Old World monkeys in Europe. About 300 individuals live on the Rock of Gibraltar. This population appears to be stable or increasing, while the North African population is declining.
Catholic places of interest in Gibraltar:
Shrine of Our Lady of Europe & Statue of Our Lady of Europe
Traveling to Gibraltar:
Gibraltar has an airport (IATA code GIB) mainly served by flights from the U.K. You can drive from Spain to Gibraltar, although customs may take some time, so if you are just spending the day here then it might be easier to park on the Spanish side and just walk across to Gibraltar. There is also overnight ferry service from Tangier in North Africa and Gibraltar is a popular port of call on many Western Mediterranean cruises.
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