Solid as the Rock (of Gibraltar) BY JEREMY WAYNE
There is punk rock, there is igneous rock and then there is Gibraltar, the British Overseas Territory incongruously attached to Spain at the southern tip of the Iberian peninsula. Two miles long by a barely a mile wide, the stubborn, recalcitrant, headstrong Rock of Gibraltar has become a byword for something unchanging and dependable, somewhere that refuses to change regardless of fad, fashion or the prevailing wind – which is undoubtedly why the Prudential insurance company uses the Rock in its logo.
Ceded to Great Britain in perpetuity at the end of the War of Spanish Secession, in 1713, Gibraltar has roughly the same relationship to the United Kingdom as Guam does to the United States — although it is 100th of Guam’s size. Take a daily stroll along Main Street and after a couple of days you will recognize virtually every face in town. And they will know you, too, or make it their business to — Gibraltarians are a curiously curious, disarmingly parochial lot. Despite the incongruity of palm trees and near year-round sunny skies, Gibraltar has the bizarre feel of an ungentrified, deeply provincial English town, where most of the 30,000 inhabitants speak Spanish as well as English, seesawing seamlessly between the two. And with its location at Western Europe’s southernmost point, almost brushing Africa (Tangier, in Morocco, is a 15-minute flight away,) it’s exciting, too. Arrive by plane at Gibraltar’s pint-sized airport, with a runway that is built on reclaimed land and bisects the territory, and you get to experience one of the
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