Panjumbie

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I arrived in La Linea (full name is La Línea de la Concepción - translates roughly as "The Border"), where I had a hotel reservation, early in the afternoon of September 14th.

The weather was not great, and the forecast for the 15th was even worse. My plan had been to tackle Gibraltar the next morning, on the 15th. It had been raining earlier and there were dark clouds off to the northwest, but the top of Gibraltar was visible from the hotel and fearing of being rained out on the 15th, I decided to do the rock that afternoon, on the 14th.

I walked from my hotel to the border, and after the minor formalities of entering the British colony, walked across the airport runway (the only land access to Gibraltar) and through the town to the cable car.

On reaching the top, I hiked to several of the lookouts. Although the skies to the northwest were threatening, the rain stayed away and the views were spectacular. I made my way down on foot, which took me much longer than I expected, perhaps because I took a couple of wrong turns along the way. It is worthy of note that the route down, at least the one I took is not all "down", there were significant climbs up to go further down,

When I finally reached "civilization", it was past dusk and I was exhausted and starving. There was a pleasant Italian restaurant where I had a good meal, and then got a taxi back to the border. I walked the mile or so from the border to my hotel. A long day!

It was good that I chose to make the "climb" on the 14th, because when I awoke the next morning it was raining and the rock was completely fogged in. Later, the rain stopped and the fog slowly lifted.

Later in the afternoon I decided to wander around the historic parts of La Linea. I walked along the coastline, dipped my toes and a little more in the Mediterranean (for some reason I didn't get a photo of my immersed feet), and walked around the marina.

I walked from there into the historic part of town. Now the guidebook descriptions don't have the nicest things to say about the town, but I found the historic center delightful. Loads of restaurants with outdoor seating, pleasant parks and gardens, a nice village square, many families eating at the restaurants or just sitting on the benches in the gardens. A very pleasant end to my time there.