Gibraltar

Well when we heard that Nick and Gemma were getting married in Gibraltar, the Gretna Green of the Med, we asked if we could come along and help them celebrate. ‘But of course and can you be our witnesses’ was the reply. What a great way to celebrate a birthday, especially once you are over 21 when you’re not sure they are really a cause for celebration anymore. So flights arranged Marseille to Malaga on Ryanair and a hire car to get us around using Doyouspain, as well as of course various hotel and apartment reservations. The bookings were almost the most traumatic part of the trip, we had issues with arrival times and getting checkin details with some bookings and well who knew that Ryanair online checkin only works with Google Chrome!! Obviously our iPad being a whole 3 and a half years old can’t work with Chrome, but all sorted eventually, they had to input identity document details for me, and flights went without a hitch. I was very anal about making sure our luggage was the correct size so of course no one gave a damn.
The most traumatic event was the hirecar NEVER and I mean NEVER EVER use Del Paso. We have our own annual excess insurance policy so didn’t want theirs, that apparently is a not the right answer. We were then told that they didn’t make a record of the marks on the car had to photograph them at the beginning of the rental. OK so we went out into the night, it’s 9:30 damp and dark, they have a black car for us, that has condensation on it, we move it to under the lights and it’s covered with dings. We are responsible for any marks no matter how small unless we can show through the photographs that they were already there. Well I tried to take pictures in the dark under bright lights, we only had the iPad, but only really got reflections and how were we going to see them all the with the dew anyway! We decided to cut our losses (€8.97) and cancel the booking. Luckily the hotel was next to the hire car lot as I’m not sure they would have given us a lift back to the airport. Now we just have to keep checking the credit card bills to make sure no charges appear.
We got to Gib a day early and John had the first of his three Full English Breakfasts, we met Dave again and had a great evening catching up, lots of changes for him last year but all set to enjoy 2020. The wedding at the registry office was lovely and went without a hitch, still can’t decide on the registrars accent very weird. We then had a wonderful lunch and afternoon sipping bubbles and eating tapas with the happy couple and two other friends.
Our room while we were there was actually in La Linea just across the border. Seriously if I was any good at throwing stones I could have landed one on British soil. The view out the bedroom window was also pretty good, the bedroom was compact but did what it said on the tin, and there was a share kitchenette, no complaints for €29 a night.Read more