Gibraltar: My British Rock in the Sun

We walked off the ship and straight through Casemates Square – red phone boxes, fish & chips, and Union Jack flags while Spanish is spoken everywhere. The cable car up the Rock was pure magic – halfway up we entered the cloud and emerged above it with Africa floating on the horizon. The Barbary macaques were waiting at the top station – one jumped on my partner's head for the perfect photo (they're wild but very used to humans). St. Michael's Cave is a cathedral carved by nature – stalactites lit in rainbow colors, the silence absolute.

We walked part of the WWII tunnels – cool, damp, and humbling. We had lunch — proper fish & chips with mushy peas at the Rage pub while watching planes land across the runway that crosses the main road. The pros: completely unique British-Monkey-African mashup. The cons: windy and cloudy more often than not, but even the mist feels atmospheric.