For four years Gibraltar sat an hour down the coast from me and I couldn’t go. Jethro and I are South African, we were here on temporary residency, and the frontier wanted a visa we didn’t have.
So the best things to do in Gibraltar stayed a list I could nearly see and never do.
Then in 2026 the gates came down. Gibraltar still isn’t in Schengen, but the border is a formality now rather than a wall, and we finally went.
One thing to know before you plan anything, though. The cable car is shut. It closed in November 2025 for a full rebuild and it isn’t expected back until 2027, so however you picture getting to the top of the Rock, picture walking instead.
I’m still so glad we went. The Upper Rock really is unlike anywhere else in Europe, and the Barbary macaques on their own would have been worth the drive.
Here’s what two days actually looked like, what it cost us, and what I’d honestly skip.
Is Gibraltar Worth Visiting?
Yes, and I’d highly recommend doing it as a day trip from a nearby city.
The whole territory is 6.7 square kilometres of British Overseas Territory stuck onto the Spanish coast. The Rock, with all of its attractions and the cheeky macaques on top of it, makes this a one-of-a-kind experience, even if the town underneath left me a little underwhelmed. Most people will have seen what they came for by the end of an afternoon.
I was most excited about the hike up the mountain, though I should have planned it better (more on that later), and about the macaques. I definitely got more of both than I bargained for.
I came expecting a British high street, and it was fun and energetic to walk through, peppered with British stores, pubs and Irish bars. But everywhere you walk you’re surrounded by wartime cannons and walls, and a military past that never quite went away.
You’ll find old fighting new on every block. Old stone walls lean against new developments, and in between sit boarded up flats waiting their turn. I wonder what the city will look like in ten years.
I wouldn’t use it as a base, and I’d skip it altogether if what you want is an Andalusian old town. Come from the Costa del Sol for the day, and give it a second one only if you want the beaches or the war history properly, both of which are among the things here that cost nothing.
What Changed in 2026: The Cable Car Is Closed
The Gibraltar cable car closed on 18 November 2025 for a complete rebuild and isn’t expected to run again until 2027. Nothing this big has happened to it since it went up in 1966, and it was still very much shut when we visited in August 2026.
Almost every guide online still tells you to ride it. So check the date on anything you read about the Rock, including this.
This makes a huge difference. Jethro and I probably lost a few kilograms hiking this hill over the course of the day, it’s that much work, and getting up it is now the easiest place on the Rock to hand over too much money. We had the same journey up the same hill quoted at three different prices inside about an hour, which tells you everything.
Depending on your fitness levels and your budget, your options to get up the Rock are:
- Walk. Free once you’ve got your Nature Reserve ticket, and a proper climb in summer heat.
- Taxi or a tour minibus. Prices at the bottom are all over the place, and there’s more on that further down.
- Bus most of the way, then walk the last bit. That’s what we did, and it was the cheapest way up by a distance.
The steep staircase alongside the old cable car line is still open, and I’d leave it well alone on the way up. It’s punishing, I regret even looking at it, and it makes a brilliant way back down.
What Is a Must See in Gibraltar?
For me the standouts of the trip were the macaques, St Michael’s Cave and the Skywalk, all three of them inside the Upper Rock Nature Reserve, and if you only have one day then I’d make these a priority.
Everything below the reserve gates is a nice enough afternoon rather than a reason to cross a border.
The Best Things to Do in Gibraltar
1. The Upper Rock Nature Reserve
I know I sound like a broken record, but really, this is the best part of Gibraltar, so don’t skip it.
Almost everything I’d cross a border for sits inside the reserve, and the ticket you buy at the gate is the thing the whole day hangs off. It’s good value for what’s behind it.
Okay, I’ll admit I could have planned this part of the trip better, because I looked at the park and thought the walk would be easy. It’s not. The attractions don’t sit along one tidy path, they zigzag right across the mountain, so you can’t climb in a straight line and tick things off as you go.
We came through the entrance, started climbing, and were immediately confused by the signs sending us along zig-zagging paths, back down before we could go up again.
Give it a full day. We gave it one, walked about 30,000 steps, ran completely out of legs and still missed a whole section.
2. The Barbary Macaques
We’d barely got through the gates before the first one wandered across the path in front of us, and watching Europe’s only wild monkey population turned out to be the most fun I’ve had on a day out in ages. They’re the thing I’ll remember longest.
We met our first ones at St Michael’s Cabin and after that they were everywhere. Most of them were happy enough to pose.
One sat there and let me photograph it and did absolutely nothing, which made me far too confident, and the very next one I tried went straight for my bag.
So here’s the rule I worked out the hard way, after a day of being tested by cheeky macaques.
- Bag in your hand, and they’ll go for it.
- Bag on your back, and they’ll come and look, and try their luck.
- Bag on the ground, and it’s gone.
On the staircase one came right up and inspected my bag without ever opening it, a bit like a customs officer deciding I wasn’t worth the paperwork. Another sat on a railing letting a whole queue of people photograph it and never once looked up.
A third came close enough that I could hear it breathing, and I’m the one who moved.
They’re not dangerous, they’re just opportunists. Keep your bag on your back and keep it closed.
My favourite spot for them wasn’t at the top at all. Coming down the steps there’s a lovely little pool on the right hand side where the babies swim, and nearly every baby we saw was along that stretch.
Halfway down they stop entirely and you’re on your own again.
One thing did upset me. A macaque had got hold of a packet of crisps and was working his way through it while people stood around photographing him, and it’s the only part of the day I’d rather not have seen.
Please don’t feed them, and don’t make it easy for them to help themselves.
It’s also illegal. There’s a £500 fine, and it isn’t really about the money, because the Government of Gibraltar warns that human food throws out their diet and leaves them prone to things like diabetes.
3. St Michael’s Cave
We came in out of the heat expecting a cave and found something much, much bigger than I’d pictured, worth the climb on its own.
What makes it is the gorgeous coloured lighting, which they use to pull shapes out of the walls as you move through. The angel is the famous one, and it’s got its own information panel telling you where to look, because you have to tip your head straight up to catch the curtain of flowstone that makes the outline.
We found a wolf too, and a figure that looks a bit like a man holding up pillars. Finding them is half the fun.
The show is called The Awakening. The signage said it runs every seven minutes, so you’ll never wait long, and it ends with a projection across the main cavern that you watch from rows of seats at the back.
We sat through ours and it was, well, coloured lights. A bit of a letdown after the build up.
The cave is the attraction, not the show.
The exit routes you straight into St Michael’s Cabin, which is very clever of them, because after that climb you’ll stop whether you meant to or not. We certainly did.
Jethro had two Cokes, I had a Fanta, we shared a spinach quiche, and we were so tired we could barely finish it.
4. The Skywalk
We climbed up onto a glass platform hanging out over the east side, looking down on Sandy Bay and those gorgeous beaches with a sheer drop under our shoes. It’s easily the best view on the Rock.
I’m really not good with heights, and standing on that glass it feels like there’s nothing beneath you at all.
My favourite photograph from the whole trip is me on that glass looking genuinely terrified.
Two warnings. It’s a bottleneck, for people and for cars, and we watched a long line of taxis sitting up on the road behind it with nowhere to go.
And the macaques have this place worked out. A group of them parked themselves along the entrance ledge so nobody quite dared walk past, and one of them kicked an empty bottle around while he waited for somebody to hand something over.
On our way out we watched one jump into a taxi driver’s car and refuse to get out, going through everything inside it. Best thing I saw all day!
5. The Windsor Suspension Bridge
After sweating our way up the first stretch we came across it strung across a gorge, and the views from the middle were honestly some of the best of our whole day, better than plenty of things higher up.
It’s a short detour off the road and well worth it.
Do stop on it properly instead of crossing and carrying on.
6. The Old Batteries and the 100 Ton Gun
Cannons, turrets and gun emplacements turn up the whole way up and the whole way down, and most of them you can just walk into for nothing. It can start to feel like you’ve walked past the hundredth cannon after a while, but a few of them are genuinely impressive up close.
Devil’s Gap Battery sits just before the park entrance, off to the side, with a cannon and lovely views, and local kids drive up to sit there with their drinks and food. The path past it is rocky, so my feet did complain, but it’s only about 200 metres and then you’re back in town.
The best one isn’t in the reserve at all. Napier of Magdala Battery has the 100 Ton Gun, and photographs really don’t tell you how big it is until somebody stands next to it.
We drove out on our second day and had it almost entirely to ourselves, which made it one of my favourite hours of the trip.
While you’re up there, see if you can work out the odd old houses built into the hillside with something steaming out of them. I never did find out what they were for.
7. Casemates Square
Everything hinges around Casemates Square. Here you’ll get hassled by tour operators and taxi touts, and you’ll probably have your first fish and chips here too.
Despite being a little underwhelmed by what was on offer along the strip, I still found myself enjoying it more than I expected to.
Restaurants run right round the perimeter, most with tables out under the arches, and the deals chalked on their boards are better than anything you’ll have read beforehand, because I couldn’t find a single page online that lists them.
Walk the whole square first, note what you want, then go back for it. Don’t take the first table you’re offered. That’s genuinely the most useful thing I can tell you about eating here.
We’d planned to see more of the city, but we made the mistake of falling for the two-for-one margaritas, which after a hot day sent us straight home to bed early. In Gibraltar, unlike the rest of Spain, that isn’t such a bad thing, since the high street was basically empty by 9.
8. The Alameda Botanic Gardens
The Alameda turned out to be my favourite stop of the whole trip.
It’s small, shaded and free, and so much prettier than the size suggests. Dragon trees, cactus beds, umbrella pines, a lovely ornamental gate at the entrance and a tiny fairy garden tucked along one edge.
Jethro and I walked the lot comfortably in half an hour and I’d happily have done it twice.
If you’ve got children with you, the fire station runs along one side of the gardens with all the fire trucks, and that’s a stop in itself.
P.S. The Alameda is about 30 minutes along the main strip from Casemates, and maybe the last real attraction worth seeing on foot.
9. Europa Point
On the way to Europa Point you’ll find yourself weaving through old tunnels and along a coast that takes in two beautiful beaches with pools, and even a waterfall.
The walk out to the lighthouse is framed by turquoise railings that make it photograph far better than it has any business doing, and when the mist is down you can hear ships out in the strait sounding their horns. That bit was lovely.
Although there’s maybe only twenty minutes of coastline, all of it is stunning, with the two pools along the way, the waterfall, and the incredible Sandy Bay you spotted from the Skywalk.
Behind the railings there’s a stadium and a scatter of buildings nobody comes to see, so walk the edges and the rocks and skip the middle.
There’s a mosque that we photographed and then ran out of time to actually go into, so I can’t tell you what it’s like inside.
10. Camp Bay and Little Bay
By the time we got here our legs had given up entirely, and these two little swimming spots on the west side were exactly where we needed to land, both with pools, cafes and bars.
One is free and the other charges, and the paid one is the one with the pretty waterfall next to it.
Parking surprised me. We went in peak August and there was plenty at both, which I really wasn’t expecting.
I still have no idea where that waterfall gets its water from. It’s a tiny territory and there’s an awful lot of it coming down.
11. Main Street
I’ve put this in because you’ll walk it, not because I liked it.
It was the biggest disappointment of the trip, if I’m honest. A busy, touristy shopping strip of ordinary chain stores, far less that felt properly English than I’d built up in my head, and nothing like as nice a walk as the whitewashed lanes of Estepona an hour back up the coast.
The good bits are all beside it rather than on it. Painted macaque sculptures pop up on corners, there’s a stone chair with John Lennon carved into it, and the lanes running off it have much better names than anything on the main drag.
Bomb House Lane. Secretary’s Lane. Great names!
They’ve still got the old red pillar boxes you see in films, and you’ll pass a former nunnery, a frames gallery and a big stern building that’s now a karate shop, with modern apartments beside old ones and everybody’s laundry hanging out.
Go late in the day, when the Irish Quarter and the pubs are the whole point of being there.
12. Watching a Plane Land at the Airport
You can stand at the fence beside the runway and watch aircraft come in right over the road. It’s free, it’s ten minutes on foot from Casemates, and it’s a great thing to do with your last hour.
This is the one thing on the list where I’d tell you to do the opposite of what we did, because we got it completely wrong.
Very few flights use Gibraltar in a day. We wandered over at 6pm assuming planes turn up the way they do at Málaga, found the next one wasn’t due until 8pm, and stood there looking at an empty runway before giving up and going for a drink instead.
Check the arrivals board before you walk over.
How Many Days in Gibraltar Is Enough?
One full day gets you the Rock and the town, and I’ve laid that day out hour by hour in one day in Gibraltar.
Two days is the comfortable version, and it’s what we did. The second day is what let us drive the coast down to Europa Point and stop at the beaches without constantly checking the time.
Past two days you need an actual reason, and there are really only three good ones.
The war history, which is substantial. The beaches. Or the food, which is honestly the one that would keep me.
After four years in Spain, I’d happily give a whole extra day to the very British, very Irish, very unhealthy takeaway stuff we can’t get at home.
Only got three or four hours? Do the Upper Rock and nothing else. The town isn’t what you came for and it’ll still be there next time.
Gibraltar in 3 hours is the cruise stop version of the day.
And if you want to know what the whole thing actually costs, I’ve itemised it in is Gibraltar expensive.
How to Get to Gibraltar
We drove, and from most of the western Costa del Sol it’s a really easy run. Estepona is under an hour, Marbella about an hour, and Benalmádena and Málaga are both around ninety minutes.
If you’re piecing together a bigger trip, it slots straight into day trips from Estepona, day trips from Marbella and day trips from Benalmadena.
I’d had my passport out and my residency card ready for weeks, and nobody wanted either of them. You drive up to the gate and go straight through it.
No booth in use, nobody standing there, no queue, no fuss at all. Ninety seconds, maybe.
Take the passport anyway. The rule hasn’t changed just because nobody happened to be checking on the afternoon we turned up.
Going out is the slower direction, because the old zigzag lanes are still in place and they drag everything down to a crawl. We left on a Friday at 3pm and it cost us about two extra minutes, which I’ll take.
If you walk in instead of driving, you cross the airport runway on foot, and it’s genuinely brilliant. Do it at least once, whatever the queue is doing.
For where to leave the car, I’ve written up where to park in Gibraltar. For buses, taxis and the three ways up the Rock, there’s getting around Gibraltar.
⭐ What I would book first >> Upper Rock tours and tickets, because the gap between the cheapest and most expensive way to reach the top is bigger than the entry ticket costs.
Is It Safe to Walk Around Gibraltar?
Yes, and I don’t feel the need to add a caveat about time of day. Two days of the town, the seafront and the Upper Rock, plus Casemates after dark, and I honestly wasn’t uneasy once.
What’ll get you is the heat and the ground under your feet, not anybody else.
We went in August and I badly underestimated it. We sweated through every single thing we were wearing, and by mid afternoon plain water had stopped doing the job entirely.
Bring electrolytes. I really wish we had.
The roads through the reserve are properly surfaced, no big cobbles and nothing loose underfoot, so I did two full days in flats and only regretted it once. That was the Devil’s Gap path down at the bottom, which goes rocky for its last two hundred metres or so and will find every thin sole you own.
As for the macaques, it all comes down to where your bag is.
On your back, they’ll have a look and think about it. In your hand, they’ll go for it. On the ground, they’ll take it.
Closed and on your back and there’s really nothing to worry about.
Best Time to Visit Gibraltar
Spring and autumn. May, June, September and October give you the lovely walking weather without the August heat that flattened us.
There’s one Gibraltar specific thing worth knowing, and I couldn’t find much about it online before we went. It’s called the levante, a warm wind coming in off the Mediterranean that hits the Rock, rises, cools, and drops a cap of cloud right over the summit.
It sat there on both of our mornings and we genuinely thought we’d booked the wrong week.
Both days it started lifting at about 11am and by half past twelve there was nothing left of it at all. It also keeps the mornings cool, which in August is a gift rather than a nuisance.
If you want the month by month version, it’s all in the best month to visit Gibraltar.
What I Would Skip
Here’s the thing I got wrong, and I got it wrong more than once. I kept planning around things instead of around how tired we were going to be.
The light show in St Michael’s Cave is where that starts. The Awakening comes round every seven minutes, so seeing one costs you nothing, and you should.
Just don’t build the visit around it, because it’s coloured light and it isn’t why the cave is famous. The cavern itself is far bigger than I expected and absolutely worth it, and I’d hate for anyone to walk out of somewhere that beautiful feeling a bit let down.
Main Street, as a destination, I’d give a miss. Walk it to get somewhere else and look sideways while you do, because everything good is beside it rather than on it.
Painted macaque sculptures on the corners, a stone chair with John Lennon carved into it, and side lanes with much better names than anything on the main drag.
Sandy Bay looks perfect from the Skywalk and it is genuinely hard to stop at. One lane road, a stop and go light, residents only parking and a card holders lot after that.
We had bought an Indian takeaway specifically to eat on that beach and we ate it in the car further down the road instead, because I wasn’t about to risk being towed for a curry.
The far end of the reserve is the one I’d think hardest about. Once you’re at the bottom of the steps, you’ve got the option of another kilometre or so along to the Military Heritage Centre, then City Under Siege, then the Great Siege Tunnels, the World War Two tunnels and the Moorish Castle.
We were finished by then and went down into town instead.
I’m told the tunnels are the best history on the Rock and I can’t tell you first hand, because we didn’t go. That’s the honest version.
The Moorish Castle was closed for renovation in August 2026 anyway, with work under way on the Tower of Homage and the old prison, so don’t assume the whole cluster is open when you get there.
Who Would Enjoy Gibraltar the Most?
Anyone who wants a proper half day walk with a real payoff at the end of it, and anyone who wants to watch wild monkeys behave badly from about a metre away. Those two things are what Gibraltar does that nothing else on this coast does at all.
Homesick Brits will have a lovely time too. The takeaways, the pubs and a shelf of Terry’s Chocolate Orange stop being a joke once you’ve been in Spain a while, and I’d cheerfully spend a whole day just eating here.
Who won’t love it? Anyone coming for architecture and old town charm.
Gibraltar’s past is military and military towns get built plain, so go to Ronda or Frigiliana for that and let this place be what it is.
I loved that hike and I didn’t finish it, which is the main reason we’ll be back. Even so, in my head it lands as a day trip rather than somewhere you go and stay.
Common Questions About Gibraltar
There are more short answers over on facts about Gibraltar.
Is Gibraltar part of Africa or Europe? Europe, although it doesn’t always feel like it from the Skywalk. On a clear day Africa is right there across the water and you’ll keep turning back to look at it.
Can you use euros in Gibraltar? Officially it’s the Gibraltar pound, which is pegged to sterling. We paid for parking in pounds and paid for the Upper Rock and a taxi in euros with no trouble at all, though you won’t get a good rate handing euros over in a shop.
Do you need a passport? Yes, take one. Gibraltar isn’t in the Schengen zone, and nobody looked at ours going in, but the requirement is exactly what it was.
Are the macaques dangerous? No, they’re just very practised thieves. Bag closed, bag on your back.
Would I recommend it? For a day, yes, without hesitating. I went for the hike and the macaques and got more of both than I bargained for, and the monkeys are the thing I’ll remember longest out of the whole summer.
Just don’t ask Gibraltar to be a base, and don’t ask it to be an Andalusian old town. Give it one very good day, take the electrolytes, and buy the curry on the way out.
