My flight is booked to Malaga Spain, it seemed close on a map when I started figuring this out.

Actually, its about 3 hours on a bus away, ok this was a bad idea.   Once I got to Malaga, the people in the airport didn’t know how to guide me down, it was a case of get to Marbella first, and get another bus from there.   So that’s what I did.   I was a bit bemused why the ‘L’ in Marbella is silent, it sounds more like Marbaya when pronounced by the locals.    I wasn’t offered Spanish at school!!

I got to this city called La Linea De la Concepcion, not actually to Gibraltar.    This is a slightly odd corner of Europe.   Apparently relations between Gibraltar in Spain haven’t always been good some how, not sure why, I thought this was the EU not the middle east!!   The bus drops me about 200 yards in front of the border crossing.

There is a large checkpoint to get through which seems a bit odd.   I guess because its a significant place for military, as its part of the entry for vessels to the Mediterranean.

I’ve always liked little countries.   This was true since I’ve been to Monaco, and keen on visiting Andorra and San Marino one day.   I visited the Monte Carlo, Monaco in 2005 which managed to pack in an amazing royal palace, marina, several casinos and a tennis court, oh, and a few times a year they close the roads and use the whole tiny state it as a race track.

Gibraltar’s name is actually derived from Arabic, Jabal Tarik, Jabal being mountain in Arabic, its then been ‘Spanish-ised’ to give its well known name,

Going through the border was simple, British policeman were happy with my just waving my passport to get through.  Once through you realise there is a airport and a runway which transverses across the whole of the connecting part of the country.   This must be the only country in the world that has this.

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