▷S3E9 The Flyaway Girl at Home in Gibraltar

English

Jan 17

Travel creator Penelope aka The Flyaway Girl shares the romantic story of how she came home to Gibraltar. From the sound of Llanito, the local language, to the flavor of frozen Sun Cola in a sawed-off carton, Penelope paints a delicious picture of the territory built on a historic rock.

This is especially impressive given that Penelope is a photographer with aphantasia, the inability to visualize images in her mind. Penelope didn't learn to take photos to supplement her travel writing; she came into travel creation from photography, her urgent passion from a young age.

Penelope shares her philosophy of sustainable travel and her love of languages and explains how Brexit has affected every day life for the residents and workers on this 6.8-kilometer peninsula.

This is an episode for people who love history, linguistics, mythology, geography and adorable baby monkeys. It will make you want to visit Gibraltar. To plan your trip, you can refer to Penelope's one-day itinerary for visiting Gibraltar, alongside her travel content from all over the world, at her website:

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It is an absolute just mishmash of different cultures, different languages. I can walk down the street at any time and I will hear English, Spanish, Janito, Arabic, in particular Moroccan Darija. And then that's not even like including all the languages here from tourist visiting. As a language lover, I love it. Oh, Gibraltar sounds amazing. [Music] Welcome to Modody Berry, the podcast about local drinks and local sayings. I'm your host, Rose Thomas Bannister. I'm so excited to be speaking with today's guest, Penelope Louise, a travel writer who lives in Gibraltar and reports on underrated destinations on her blog, The Fly Away Girl. Originally from Britain, Penelope speaks English, German, and conversational Spanish. She's currently studying Japanese. Penelope's work is focused on hidden gems around the world, which is her way of promoting sustainable travel. Penelope, welcome. - Thank you. - Before I start the interview with Penelope, I want to let you know that Motodiberi is a listener supported program. Please take a moment now to visit patreon .com /motodiberi to become a supporter today. Penelope, I'm so impressed by all your travels. I see on your blog and your Instagram, how many countries have you visited at this point? - So I think last count, it was 61, I want to say it's definitely 60 plus. I think it's 61. That's amazing. How many countries are there in the world? I feel like I'd have to Google that. That's a good question. That depends on what number you're using, because there are various ways of measuring how many countries there are. You've got the UN recognized countries, which I'm not going to state the number, because I know I'll get it slightly wrong. Someone will absolutely call me out for that. But it's definitely over 200. Now, So, now I'm not quite of a certain way there, but we're on our way there. - Do you have that goal to visit everywhere? - I would like to, but whether it's really like feasible necessarily, then that's to be seen. I want to see everywhere in terms of the fact that I'd love to see everywhere, but I don't want to just visit a place for the sake of ticking it off a list. - That makes sense. - Penelope, how do you define sustainable travel? And how does your work fit into that? For me, sustainable travel and sustainable tourism is just all about not having a negative impact on the place that you're visiting and on the world around you. It means completely different things to different people. So for some people, it's avoiding flying as much as possible. For some people, they much prefer traveling by train. And I'm also the same. Like when I, when I travel around Spain, I much prefer to take the train rather than flying. But sometimes the convenience overrides the environmental friendliness. The cost is a barrier for a lot of people. I often had this issue when I lived in the UK, where it was to be so expensive to take a train, let's say, from where I used to live, which was near Southampton. I was looking at taking the train up to Leeds to visit a friend. It was cheaper for me to fly, which is absolutely wild to me like it shouldn't be cheaper to fly than to get the trade. So for me, sustainable travel is all about not having any negative impact on the place I'm visiting and leaving a place hopefully the same or better than how I came there. Whether that's by talking to local people and understanding more about how they want people to experience their destination, learning the language, which for me, I'm an absolute language nerd. I studied languages in university. I've taught myself languages just for fun. I was that child. So that's kind of what it is for me. And just finding the places, visiting the places that aren't necessarily on most tourist itineraries. When you say negative ways, what are some of the ways that people do have a negative impact or leave a place worse than, you know, what should people avoid if they're trying to travel sustainably? There's a massive issue around the world at the moment of over -tourism and it's not a new issue. A lot of people put it down to places going viral on social media, but in all honesty, maybe that's exacerbated it, but it didn't cause it in the first place. There's a lot of backlash put on influencers sharing places on social media and saying that caused the problem and let's use Kyoto in Japan as an example. It's really been suffering from over tourism in certain areas like Gion recently and they've put like bans on tourists being able to go into certain areas and a lot of people blame it on let's say like Instagram influencers people posting on social media about it but the thing is this was a place that was mentioned and is still mentioned in every single guidebook you read about Japan and about Kyoto, so it's for sure a little that people kind of think it's a bit of a new issue where it's really not. For me, Oberturism has so much of a negative impact on places. It prices out locals. We've seen that recently with the protests in Barcelona, and now I don't agree with how they were protesting. I don't agree with basically assaulting tourists to make your point, that should never be how it is. But I do understand where they were coming from in terms of we can't afford to live in the place where we're from, in the place where we work. When I moved to Berlin, I did a year abroad as part of my degree. It was so hard to find somewhere to live because everywhere people wanted to rent out for Airbnb to tourists 'cause it made so much more money than someone having that accommodation for 12 months. That's an issue in New York City as well. In our case, the city has recently regulated Airbnb a little bit more. So there's certainly some systemic issues that can be addressed not just by one person. Hot take on hating on influencers, by the way. Let me know what you think of this. I think we've got two things there that are really psychologically satisfying in terms of blaming someone. One is new technology, which, for better or worse, right or wrong is always a nice boogie man, right? We're always like that's new. It's always how it works. It's like, oh, cause of the problem when we went from horse and cart. Not to say that there aren't positive and negative changes with anything. This idea of what an influencer is and this kind of knee -jerk negative reaction, I feel like everybody all over the world is always taking pictures with their phones, everybody. If you go to any sort of concert or anything. Everyone is watching it through the small screen, everybody. But as far as the people who actually go ahead and do well on social media, especially in the travel space, I feel like a lot of them are women. So there's this sort of image of a woman having a good time that is sort of weirdly radical, also in terms of what it's like to be a woman on the internet. Do you feel like I'm on to anything there? I think a little bit. I think in a way, a little bit of it is jealousy. I don't necessarily think that's the only reason, but for some people I definitely think that is the issue with it They're not doing it. So they're gonna vilify the people who do I'm not gonna deny There are some influences who do cause problems who are disruptive You've seen YouTube videos of people being so disrespectful to sacred site. It's not a case of oh, there's no bad influence There are bad eggs But you can say that for anything It's the same when people vilify tourists like, "Juris are bad" or in my case, "British tourists are bad." We get such a bad rap. I get such a bad rap as a Brit and I'm like, "No, I don't even drink." Don't even drink alcohol, okay? It's one of those things like you have a few bad actors and people just tie everyone with the same brush and it is unfortunate and it's why a lot of us who are in like the travel influencing industry, I moved away from using the term influencer to describe my work four or five years ago, because it started getting this seriously bad reputation. And everyone just assuming you're just trying to get free things out of everyone, you're just trying to exploit hotels and things like this, this really weird billification of influences just by virtue of they're called an influencer. Can you first tell us how you ended up living in Gibraltar in the first place? So that is indeed quite the tale. So I didn't know that much about Gibraltar, like turn the clock back. Let's call it five and a bit years. I didn't really know anything about Gibraltar. I mean, I knew there's existence, but that was about it. I definitely thought of visiting. I don't know why, actually because knowing more about it I'm like oh no this is a place that really should have interested me but I guess if you don't know anything about somewhere then you don't know. I was traveling in Bosnia of all places. I was in Mosta and I was traveling back through Mosta on my way to go to Split where I was flying home from so I'd already been through Mosta. I wasn't there to really see anything. I was mainly just there to break up the journey from Sarajevo. I didn't want to go find somewhere different to eat. I'm lactose intolerant and I knew a place where they could cater for me and I was like, "Oh, I don't have to think. I'm just going to go to this restaurant." And so I go to this restaurant and there is this group of three guys chatting to this. I think they were Canadian couple and they were just chatting. I'm by myself eating. You know, when you're overhearing someone's conversation, I don't really know what they're talking about. I think they were talking about doing like road trips around the world or driving in different places. And then it comes up that they can remember the German word for motorway, me being the little nerd I am. And also a German speaker. I just like piped up. I was like, it's out of one. Just like, just, just to let you know. And the group of the three guys, they All sounded British. They invited me to join their table. We got chatting. I got on quite well with one of the guys He seemed a little bit shy But we got on really well. We ended up going to a bar nearby. I drank alcohol at that time So it was there was a lot of rackier involved. I stayed in touch with one of the guys who was in the group the shy one Yeah, the shy one We stayed in touch. We talked so much. I went on a trip to Georgia and Armenia, basically talked the entire time. So I had this press trip to Agadir in Morocco coming up. I have like a few friends who might normally be my plus one or my mom or my dad. No one was available. And I was just like, oh my god, is this insane task? Like, I've only met this person once. But I was like, crazy question. Do you want to be my plus one? And he said, "Yes, so technically, our first date was a five -day trip to Morocco." I have to say, sometimes when you go on a trip with somebody, you know, sometimes that works out and sometimes it doesn't. So how did it work out for you? Well, we're now engaged, so pretty well. He's from Gibraltar, right? He is from Gibraltar, yeah. So how did you end up moving to Gibraltar? That is another funny story where I never actually planned on moving to Gibraltar. I was like coming back and forth from between where I lived in the UK and Gibraltar because I worked for myself doing my travel content creation full -time at that time so I would come visit for a few weeks then go back home or go on trips different places and then I was came to stay for a month in February 2020. Then lockdown happened so all of a sudden I had to make this decision did I want to go back home and stay with my parents and then not know when I'd be able to come back to Gibraltar or stay. My parents had no issue with me staying. I mean, like, we kind of all assumed it wouldn't be that long. And yeah, I'm still here. So it felt right and it worked out. And my parents have actually since moved to Spain and saw the house in the UK. So that's great. So they're a little bit closer. That's, that's amazing. Tell us about Gibraltar give us the Gibraltar guide for the person who's almost never heard of the place Give us some misconceptions and then set us straight. Gibraltar is a British overseas territory So you may have heard of Falkland Islands. We are a British overseas territory and we are located on the very south of Spain We're only 6 .8 kilometers squared. So really small territory and yet we are a territory. We don't call ourselves a country. We're also not a county. So we actually don't have our own MP in the UK. We have our own parliament. One misconception is people refer to us as a colony. We are not a colony. People here get very upset if you call them a colony. Gibraltar has its own parliament. We have our own elections. I've lived here long enough now that I vote in elections here. And obviously I can't vote in the normal UK ones anymore. That's not our government. We have our own health system, our own health service, like our own police. The only thing we do rely on the UK for is defence. So certain parts of the military, in particular, like the navy, we do rely on the UK for that. But Gibraltar does have its own military. There's an army. But generally, navy wise, it tends to rely on the UK. Okay. And where is Gibraltar? If you think of a map of Spain, You've got Portugal on your left hand side, and then if you go down you end up going across the Strait of Gibraltar, very well named, across to Morocco. So that bit just above Morocco and south of the Spanish Autonomous Community of Andalucía, you'll find Gibraltar right there. We border the Spanish region of Andalucía. The town, the other side of the border is called Nalinha the line of conception or essentially like the line of conception. Literally the town, the other side of the border is just called the line. What's it like crossing the border? This has changed massively over the past, I'd say like four years, thanks to Brexit. It used to be so easy. You would just wave your ID, you could travel on just your like Gibraltar ID, Spanish ID, any just ID, you didn't need your passport, probably should have done if you didn't need to. But now, I get stamped every time I cross the border. I have to prove that I have accommodation when I go into Spain. They're really strict with the border now. My friend flew to Spain, flew to Malaga, didn't have to show any proof of accommodation or return flight, whereas me crossing the border to go visit my parents, I have to show that I have a proof of accommodation, and that has to be a hotel. I can't just be like, I'm staying with my parents. Brexit has really complicated things, and it's and it's basically made a bit of a political minefield at the border. You're basically living in kind of a small town. Like, I feel like a lot of people in a border area would cross the border, go shopping, come back. Is this filling up the pages in your passport really fast? Well, it was until we had to start providing like proof of accommodation. I finished my last passport. I finished in less than two years. It filled up in less than two years. Now, obviously I have to provide like proof that I'm staying somewhere and It has to be like an actual hotel booking. So I go a lot less often, which is a shame. I tend to visit my parents on the way back from something. Like say I've gone to stay up in Malaga for something or I've gone on a trip and I'm going back from the airport. Like I'll visit them then. - That sounds like a drag for you, I'm sorry. - It's a pain, it is a pain. At the moment, my fiance is fine. So he has a red ID card, which is basically he's a permanent resident here. Whereas I'm not, I have like a support to Civilian Registration card because I'm a non -permanent resident. I've to obviously renew my residency every so often Essentially, it's like whether you have citizenship versus a green card. I want to hear a little more about the history of Gibraltar and what it's like for a person to visit But let's start with language. So talk to me about language in Gibraltar. This is always something that really confuses people when they come here, because while yes we do all speak English here, that's not really what you're gonna hear a lot of the time. You'll hear a lot of Spanish, mainly because we have a lot of cross frontier workers. Cross frontier workers, and this is also another reason why Brexit is very complicated here right now, come under the number of times I had, but it's thousands. We have thousands of people who cross the border every single day to come into Gibraltar to work. And that's whether people simply live in Spain and work in Gibraltar, or they are Spanish as well. A lot of people from La Linea work in Gibraltar because there's more jobs here and they do tend to pay better because our cost of living is higher, so obviously our salaries are therefore higher. So if you live in Spain, especially some of the areas just across the border, rent is so much lower, but if you're earning a Gibraltar salary, then you can be pretty well. So you'll hear a lot of Spanish from cross -frontier workers. A lot of people here also do speak some Spanish. A lot of people here have Spanish relatives or say a Spanish grandmother. But then you'll also hear what sounds like Spanish at first, but it's not. Because then you'll hear English words. And then you'll hear words that aren't English or Spanish. And that is Janito, which is also pronounce yanito, janito, whichever way you want to pronounce it, you pronounce it differently. When people do speak Spanish here as well, it is with a very Andalufian accent, so the double "l" in Spanish is pronounced like a "je" here, so your hair like "caje" instead of "caje", "boteja" instead of "boteja", it's quite a different way of speaking here. The language here is janito and it is, I would say it is a creole. I don't know if linguists would disagree with me putting that label on it, but in my unprofessional opinion, it's essentially a creole because it is a language that has aspects of Spanish, in particular Andalusian Spanish, English in particular, British English. And then it also has aspects from languages like Judeo Spanish, so Hakedia, from Maltese, from Genoese, Ligurian dialect. Even some, I believe, from Portuguese and Arabic and Berber. Like, there's so much, like, within this one language. Basically, it just grew out of all the different nationalities who lived here. We had a lot of people who came from Genoa, I wanna say, around the 17th century. Yeah, it just developed out of that. And it is so interesting, but unfortunately, the worst thing is, is that it is dying because a lot of young people don't necessarily use it so much. You tend to mainly hear the older generation speaking it. That to me is it's sad and I want to see more to protect it here. Well, let's talk about it today. I think you have some sayings that you wanted to share with us. What you know is our specialty here at Motodiberi. Oh, look, you've got a dictionary. That is so cute. So they recently released this book and and it's like the Janito dictionary. I was going through this with my fiancee and I was like, which ones have you heard? So both his parents are British. So he didn't grow up speaking Janito at home, which some people do, but he also heard it a lot in school. It's quite funny, the ones that he knows, because a lot of them kind of like related to what you'd hear in school. So one of the first ones that he told me about was a phrase that, well, it's a little weird, and it's just purish. There's not really any standardized way of writing genito, which is the other very confusing thing. So you'll see this written as like P -U -R -I -S -H, some places will put it P -U -R -I -X -X, almost in like a Galician way of pronouncing the X as like a shuh. Purish is like, if you've ever played tag, right, in school, and a baby like, oh, no, no, like, I'm safe, I'm safe, you can't get me, you can't get me, Wait, that here, you say "poorish". So instead of crossing your fingers, you say "poorish". Yeah. Oh, that's funny. Do you know what it means besides that use? I did look it up before and it doesn't seem to have like a proven, doesn't seem to be like full evidence of where it's from. Some places say it could derive from the English word like "poorish". That doesn't make too much logical sense to me. But I did see other, some other places that said it came from Hakete, a Judeo -Spanish language. I don't know if I'll ever know, but it is a common playground word. What other sayings did you find out about? So many. One of my favorite ones is where cake and pancakes. In Spanish, cake is "torta" "crepa", pancake in Spanish. I can't think of it all of a sudden. Here, cake You say "keke" and pancake? Pancake. Oh, that's adorable. Which is quite cute. I'm not going to lie. Everywhere here has like local names. So that is something I always have to remember when I'm reading my blog posts as well. Everyone here refers to one square as "Piazza". It is not called "Piazza" officially. Its actual name is John McIntosh Square. But if you said I'll meet you at John McIntosh Square, just someone, they would just look at you like, why are you being so formal? But if you say to someone, oh, I'll meet you at Piazza and they're not from here, they're not gonna find it on Google Maps. - Right, right, right. What about in terms of like proverbs or kind of longer phrases, just to give us a little more sense of the language? - He was one. So I basically asked around a lot of my friends who are a journey that I was like, tell me what like sayings that you guys would use or you guys know. So this is or one of my former colleagues actually suggested. The phrase is kicks pussy big up, which makes no sense in English or Spanish. And it basically means like, if you don't ask, you don't get. Apparently a lot of these kind of like sayings, they come from sayings that people used when playing the game with models. - Oh, really? - Which is the most random origin story I've ever heard. But the amount of times I was looking up stuff in the, in the Janito dictionary, talking about my fiance, it was like, from games of marbles. Why is everything from games of marbles? Well, I think if you don't ask, you don't get is, you know, pretty useful. You can sit there. All right, what else? One that I really enjoy, because similar way of saying this in Wales as well, a lot of their phrases in Janito are basically taken from very literally translating Spanish. This one I love and it's, I'll do it now a bit later. - I'll do it now a bit later? - Yeah. - Which is, that doesn't make sense. You can't do it now and a bit later. - How does that make sense culturally? - So apparently it comes from the Spanish ahora luego and like now I'll do it, but then I don't really know how this has come to this, but I just love that it has. - Oh, okay. So it does mean now, but Loago became Luego. - Yeah, I think. - So I'll do it now, it became now and later. - I'll do it now, a bit later. - Oh, that's so interesting. - Oh, no, but it does mean I'll do it in a bit. - It doesn't mean I'll do it now. It means I'll do it later. - Also, we're much more aligned with like Spanish timekeeping than we are with British keeping. I'll do it now. It's still later. So when you're in Gibraltar and as you're living there, how much Janito do you hear as you're going about your life? Quite a bit. Obviously, if you're not from here, people aren't going to just speak to you in Janito. Say, for example, if you're like ordering in a restaurant, you may be speaking Spanish because a lot of the hospitality staff tend to be from Spain. So it's a bit of a mix. Like some people will just use Spanish. Like I tend to just chat with them in Spanish or occasionally if I don't know the words in Spanish, I will just like combine English and Spanish in one. Everyone knows, everyone understands. So pretty much people speak English? Yeah. Yeah. Generally people with like humanitarian families, they will talk to each other in Janito. Cool. I'm so happy you came on the show to teach me and or is more about this because it's really interesting. And this is just the kind of local language that I like to give some press. So, hey everybody, now you know about Janito, which is it spelled with two Ls? - Yeah. - Yeah, so L -L -A -N -I -T -O. Okay, amazing. So this beautiful multicultural Mishmash language from the territory of Gibraltar. If we're gonna visit Gibraltar, What would you suggest for our day? What should we see and what is the history of some of those places that we would visit? - A little bit on the history, just a little in a nutshell about Gibraltar. So Gibraltar was essentially like discovered, I suppose you could say by the Moors in 711, which I always remember because it's like the store. That was when the Moors came to Gibraltar and pretty much made the first, basically made the first places to live here, made the first, not really colony, but settlement, settlement, that's a better word. From the eighth century, basically flip -flopped between being Moorish and being Spanish, like a lot of this region. If you know your Spanish history, then you'll know it was quite Moorish for quite a while. And then basically the Reconquista of the Spanish, the like monarchs of Spain, basically taking back Spain and eventually pushing out the Moors. So with Gibraltar, it was Spanish, it was Moorish, it was Spanish, it was Moorish. You get the idea. Gibraltar went back to being Spanish in 1501. Later on, in the 18th century, quite a big moment in Spanish history, you had the War of Spanish Succession. It was during this, that an Anglo -Dutch fleet basically captured Gibraltar. Gibraltar was a really, it was an important place on the Mediterranean. It was a very useful strategic location to have. Spain was distracted, Britain took it. Under the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, Spain officially ceded Gibraltar to Britain. They also ceded a variety of other places, including places like Menorca. They also ceded Sicily, I believe, and other strange areas, including Spanish Netherlands, which I didn't know was a thing until I researched this more recently. Still today, Spain claims Gibraltar as their own, and obviously Britain claims Gibraltar as their own. It's a British overseas territory, so there is an ongoing dispute over the sovereignty. There's a whole variety of issues that come with that. Recently, I'm going to assume you're not really into your European football, but there was a recent issue where Spain won the Euros and at their celebrations in Madrid, two of the players started chanting "Riva y estar es español" which is a Francoist chant. So quite a problem, not ideal. They ended up getting sanctioned by UEFA, a big political minefield between the UK and Spain. And another reason why Brexit is very complicated. So it's not necessarily settled? No, not in the slightest. Like the government of Spain officially considers Gibraltar to be theirs. Britain is illegally occupying in their opinion. - Wow, so when you say Gibraltar was important, why was Britain interested in it in the first place? Was it a geographic location or a resource? - I believe it was because of its geographic location, like on the Mediterranean. Basically, if you control Gibraltar, you can control the straight of Gibraltar, which is that passage between the southern tip of Spain and the northern tip of Morocco, that area. So I believe that's why I was, I'm not going to say I'm any kind of expert on the strategic importance, but I believe that's what it was essentially. So what's the population of Gibraltar? The population's around 30, 32 ,000 here. And then you also have people who are coming into work every day. So I believe it goes up to around maybe like 35, 37 ,000 based will come in to work, but don't quote me on those numbers. - Thank you so much. I feel like I understand so much better what this place is and sort of the question of like, okay, it's not Spain, but it's not a country. What's the status? Who controls it? So thank you so much for explaining that. So the next time I'm in Andalusia, let's say I wanna make a day trip into Gibraltar, what should I see and what will I experience if I follow your travel advice. There is so much to see and do in Gibraltar. A lot of people just do a day trip. I personally think it's even better if you come and stay because then you get to see more than just when the cruise ships come in or when the tour buses come in. Gibraltar in the evenings for me is so nice because then the big groups have left. For me, I highly recommend actually staying in Gibraltar if you're able to. But even if you're not, Basically, the must is the rock of Gibraltar, which is probably the best, best known thing about us is that it's a giant rock. And with our Barbarian macaques or most people just call them monkeys, but they are Barbarian macaques if we're going to be we're going to be specific. Definitely go up the rock and there's a variety of ways you can do that. So that's whether you decide you want to go hiking up the rock. Personally, not my thing. And if you're not feeling quite that energetic, you can take the cable car or you can do a taxi tour So the taxi association here does rock tours, which is a really great way of seeing Gibraltar if you only have a short amount of time. I love a cable car. I'm already imagining myself I do love a cable car. I'm a big fan. I'm a big fan of cable cars They're fun. There's a really lovely restaurant up there. The Monts Calpe They do weddings wedding reception is up there as well. It's a normal restaurant, you can get drinks, you can go enjoy a meal up there, or I believe that you cream teas, which I really want to do at some point. Really nice place to go and have something to eat or drink. And then you've got the Skywalk, which was opened by Luke Skywalker. Wait, what? Yeah, so Mark Hamill, who played Luke Skywalker, opened attraction here called the Skywalk. So this is at the top of the rock. And it's basically, it's a glass -bottomed platform. I think it's around 300, 400 meters above the sea below. The views are amazing. You get incredible views from up there. And they called it the Skywalk, and they had Mark Howell officially open it. Luke Skywalker opened the Skywalk. Oh, is it scary? Not for me, but I'm fine with heights. So tell me more about where this connects to. So if you're going out on the skywalk, does it just go out over the water with the glass? Is it like a tunnel? Yeah, no, it's a platform that goes out over basically the side of the rock, so over the east side of the rock. You can see Spain now in front of you, you've got the Rock of Gibraltar to your left, then you're on it. But are you really good views of over the rock to your left? Then to the right, you can see Morocco. It is a really great place. And yeah, it's a glass, bottomed platform. If you're not cool with Heidsten, it might not be for you. But I think it's absolutely great. It was open in 2018. I just double checked. Ah, sounds like a beautiful view. So tell me more about these monkeys, the macaques. Yeah, so they're barbaric macaques. Basically, they're the only wild monkeys of Europe. They have a bit of a bad rep. It's not that they get violent. It's just, if you're not careful, they might try and steal your stuff. So if you have a bag that sounds like it's food in or does have food in, you might be in trouble. There are signs everywhere. So this shouldn't ever come as a surprise the tourists when they go up the rock. There are signs that say like don't take food up. They are fed but they're monkeys. They're going to try and steal your stuff. So they have a bad rap for stealing your snacks. Yeah, basically. What do they look like? How pick are they? So you got the baby ones, which is so cute. I'm not sure what time of year like the babies are born, but it's the best time of year. They're so adorable. They're so ditty like the size of a kitten. Oh, well, we'll find that and put it in the show notes so you can time your trip to baby, baby macaque season. Yeah, I've got pictures. They are so cute. But like the adult ones, they can get a bit territorial, especially when there are babies like the mother might get territorial, don't get too close. They are wild animals. The usual rules apply. There's a lot of science that just say don't take food up the rock because the monkey will try and steal it. So besides the rock, what else should people see? Because that's the one that everybody knows about. But what are some of the other places? So there's also other places up the rock, such as St. Michael's Cave, which is probably one of the most impressive places. Imagine a cave just full of stalactites and stalagmites. And then they put a light show in it. It's incredible. They started this a few years ago. I got to go see it with when I had a friend visiting and I took them there and I didn't actually realize that I did this light show and it's called, I believe it's called the ascending. It is so impressive. It's a light and sound installation. So they have these lights going different colors, showing a story like the story of Gibraltar. It's hot. It's It's hard to explain. So basically all I'm gonna say is you should come here and see it. And they also host music events in St. Michael's Caves. So next April, so April 2025, Russell Howard is doing a comedy show in the cave, which is so cool. Like where else do you go where they hold comedy shows in a giant cave? - That sounds like an amazing venue. The acoustics great. Yeah. Then we also have the great siege tunnels. So these were tunnels that were dug out of the rock full of cannons, basically to defend Gibraltar against the Spanish who tried to take it back on a regular basis. It's crazy to see like how they excavated these tunnels without modern technology that we would kind of expect to be used. It's highly impressive. They just did this basically with I think just dynamite pickaxes. Wow. That's just wild as a concept to me. I'm no civil engineer, but it is impressive. There are tunnels just throughout the rock. There's so many natural caves and then like manmade tunnels. So I like to describe the rock as Swiss cheese. There's also Windsor suspension bridge, which is probably my favorite place up the rock. Again, don't go if you're not good with heights. It is suspended over a very large gorge, very large drop. But in my opinion, it's absolutely spectacular. I can actually see it from the top of the road where I live. The views are incredible. - Can you help me just visualize how much of Gibraltar, of this 6 .8 kilometers square is this big rock. -Tibrotas fight in kind of different areas. So you've got Europa Point, which I'll talk more about in a bit. And then you've got South District, which is the kind of towards Europa Point on the southwestern side of Gibraltar. So we're a peninsula, so imagine us as a bit like a bit of a long triangle pointing downwards pointing towards Morocco. That southwest area is called South District. The very southern area is Europa Point. Then you've got the east side, which is shockingly on the east. We're really good with these descriptive names. And then you've got west side, which is on the west. And then health district. That's pretty much how Gibraltar is divided. And you can imagine all of this is basically like a ring around the rock itself. Okay, that's really helpful. Okay. So what about besides the rock? I'm sure everybody goes straight there, goes up, sees the monkeys, has a monkey steal their snack, takes a picture. What else can you tell us as a resident and travel writer that people should see? Back to Europa Point, which is the southernmost point of Gibraltar, and it has amazing views of Morocco. If you're lucky with the weather, if you're unlucky with the weather, you see nothing. When my parents came to visit me for the first time, I just had to gesticulate and go, "Morocco is usually over there. Just believe me, Morocco. Morocco is over there." Because you couldn't see it at all. But generally speaking, if it's a relatively nice sunny day, which we do get a lot of here, you can see Morocco so clearly. Gibraltar is known as one of the pillars of Hercules. So if you know your mythology at all? In lateness. Okay. Labors of Hercules is one of the, one of the myths. Basically, Hercules was given these tasks, these labors to complete. And one of them was to cross the Atlas Mountains. Hercules had incredible strength. So instead of climbing over the mountains, I forget why he actually had to climb over the mountains. I believe it was something to do about moving sheep or goats somewhere. Either way, he was having to get from one side of the mountains to the other side of the mountains. So instead of climbing over the mountains, he pushed them apart, which, yeah, that is obviously the easier way rather than hiking. Clearly that is the way, if you're Hercules. And so he pushed them apart, and so one side became the Rock of Gibraltar, and the other side, if you are Morocco, it is Jebel Musa, the Mount Musa, and if you are Spanish, it is a mountain that's in Ceuta, which is a Spanish territory in the north of Morocco. Now, if you're hearing there's a slight sound in Gibraltar that's similar to Jebel Nusa that's because there is because when the Moors founded Gibraltar the Moorish commander who was first to arrive here was named Tarik so it was named Jebel Tarik or Tarik's mountain and Jebel Tarik got moved into Spanish the Spanish took the Moorish name and then kind of managed to find it. So Gibraltaric became Gibraltar, which then eventually became Gibraltar. Oh, I love, I love an origin story of a name like that. So Hercules pushing the mountains apart, that's an origin myth for the Strait of Gibraltar? It is. Water flowed in to connect the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, and that created the Strait of Gibraltar. According to the myth, - That is why the monkeys are on this side as well. - Ah, because they were just all over there when the turquoise. - 'Cause they were just shielding and then someone squids them apart. (upbeat music) - So what else should we see in Gibraltar besides the rock and Europa point? - Aside from that, you've got the entirety of the town area. So Main Street is like the main road that stretches all the way from Case Mate Square, which is one of our major squares. It's where you'll find, for example, National Day celebrations, Christmas celebrations, all the way down to Trafalgar Cemetery, which is confusingly not a cemetery for everyone from the Battle of Trafalgar. Imagine this one road that stretches pretty much like the entirety of the main residential area so one interesting thing about water is it is a lot larger now than it was a few hundred years ago and that's because of reclaimed land previously anything outside of the city walls was water we didn't used to be a 6 .8 kilometers squared we used to be a lot smaller so whenever you're in an area that is outside of the city walls, you have to remember that that was once water. - So they built it, like Venice? - Yeah. - Wow, using what? - That is a good question. - Okay, that's okay, that's okay. We don't have to answer everything. - That's a great question. (laughing) - That's okay. So you're in Gibraltar, you're, what are you seeing? What are you eating? What are you drinking? What's the vibe? - So I think walking down Main Street from Case Mates to the Southport Gates and Trifaga Cemetery is something that everyone should do and they're in Gibraltar. So Case Mates Square is a really beautiful square. I believe it originated in terms of the name anyway and the architecture. I believe it was a barracks. Walking from there you can then walk all the way down Main Street and you'll pass by Piazza which we mentioned earlier which is real name John Macintosh Square. In John Macintosh Square, you have the City Hall, which is this really beautiful pink facade. And then you also have our Parliament building. Unfortunately, right now the Parliament building is under renovation. So not quite as pretty right now. Sorry. The pink facade is the Parliament building. And City Hall is actually currently where they're holding the, I don't know what you call them in the US for like registry office weddings. They recently moved them from being at the registry office, which isn't that pretty. It's a city hall, which is lovely. Nice. At some point, that is where I will be marrying my fiance. Oh, congratulations. What's the cuisine like and the eating and drinking, dining life? Like, what are you going to be ordering? Is it kind of like British food? Is it kind of like Spanish food? Is it's its own thing? Los dos. It's essentially a combination of the two. So you can go somewhere and get tapas, and next door you can get fish and chips. - Ooh, fun. - I love that. Like literally in case maze, there is a tapas place next to a fish and chip shop. I'm not even like exaggerating. They are right next door. So we have British style pubs like The Clipper, one of my favorite places for dinner. It's a really good value. They did really good food. it's essentially just really great pub food. You've got pies, you've got burgers, you've got all day breakfast. We have a really nice steakhouse if you're wanting something a little more upmarket. It's called Gauchos, that is amazing. We've got some really great Indian places. Gibraltar has had a lot of people come from different areas aside from the UK. People tend to think of Gibraltos, oh it's just basically British expats, but that is not not true at all. You have people who came from Spain to Gibraltar and then you also have people who came as I mentioned earlier from Genoa. You have this Genoese population. They were predominantly fishermen. There's actually a specific area in Gibraltar which is somewhere else you should definitely visit. That's called Catalan Bay or Caleta, La Caleta, sometimes further like little Genoa. If you know that region of Italy you will see why. It is these beautiful, colorful houses, think kind of jinkwetere -esque, gorgeous, so pretty. That'll also bring me onto something food related in the bed as well. Aside from that, we also have people from Morocco. Then we also have people who came over from the Sindh province of, I believe it is now Pakistan. I believe at the time it was India and then after partition it became Pakistan. I found this really interesting because there are quite a few people who live here, who have Indian heritage. We have a Hindu temple. When I first came here, I was like, "Why do we have a Hindu temple? Is there a big population of people from India?" Yeah, it's people who came from the Sindh province of what is now Pakistan, but who are Hindu. And they came to Gibraltar. I'm not entirely sure of the logistics, but they did. You also find really delicious Indian food here. - Oh, I really want to visit now. - It is an absolute just mishmash of different cultures, different languages. I can walk down the street at any time and I will hear English, Spanish, Janito, Arabic, in particular, Moroccan Darija. And then that's not even like including all the languages here from tourist visiting. As a language lover, I love it. - Oh, It sounds amazing. This seems like there's so much to see. So I'm gonna point people to, you have a blog post or two at the Flyaway Girl, which is your beautiful blog with these beautiful pictures that you take. You take these incredible photographs. Had that always been an interest of yours or was it something that you developed because you had decided to become a travel writer? - No, it was definitely the other way around. I had got into travel blocking from photography. As a kid, I was always wanting to steal my dad's camera. My dad had DSLR. I was always wanting to use it and take photos. So eventually, when I was 15, for my birthday, my parents went 50 /50 with me. I paid for half of it. They paid for half of it. So I could have my own DSLR. So I would stop thieving my dad's camera. My dad wanted to use the camera. I love photography so much. So one thing that's like, I think is Probably the reason why I got so into photography is I have something called aphantasia. I don't know if you've ever heard of that, but essentially I can't visualize in my head. So it's why sometimes I struggle a little with describing things or places because I can't visualize an image of that in my head. When people say in their mind's eye, I don't have one. I think that that is possibly one reason that I got so into photography is because I couldn't see those pictures in my own head. Or to describe to someone else, you could just say here, here's the picture. This is what it literally looks like. Why don't you tell us a little bit about the posts that you've written on your website about Gibraltar specifically and also tell us more about what people can get from your site and from your social media in terms of learning about the world and planning their own trips. I have two Gibraltar Posts so far. I plan on writing more. Currently I have one that's all about 10 amazing things to do in Gibraltar and that includes a variety of things I've already mentioned as well as some that I did not have time yet to mention on here so definitely go read that if you're interested in learning more about what you can do here. For the people who want to do a day trip I have a one -day itinerary for Gibraltar which is completely from a local's point of view, all the best places that locals know and how to basically see Gibraltar the best way, not fall for any tourist traps too much, basically just how to get around. We have a few quirks. - Well, for those who are curious about what those quirks are, I'm gonna put the links to those two posts in the show description, so you can go there and interact with Penelope site, but tell us the name of your website, tell us the name of your socials, how people can follow you and support your work. So my blog is www .theflyawaygirl .com. I have lots of blog posts that are all about hidden gems around the world, as well as itineraries through different destinations such as Genoa, places around Morocco, and I'm currently working on my content from Japan. lots to read there. You can find me on TikTok and YouTube as the Flyaway Girl. And then on Instagram, which is my main platform, you can find me at the underscore flyaway underscore girl. On Instagram, you'll find loads of reels and photos from predominantly hidden gems and less known destinations around the world, my experiences, and so much more. You have some pieces on your blog that feature different contributing travel writers and I did contribute a little piece in your hidden gems of Spain post which I'll link talking about my time in Galicia. I'm just starting with my series on Instagram sharing all the places that I have visited and that I loved there so that will be live when people hear this so definitely go check that out. At this point today, where are you going next on Saturday? I'm flying up to Barcelona on Sunday My fiancee and I leave on an 11 -day cruise. It's so exciting. This is in collaboration with Virgin voyages We're visiting some places that I've been to before But I'm really looking forward to getting to know the lesser known side of these it's shoulder season and we'll be visiting Santorini and Miquonoss Which are not new to me, but they are new to my fiancee in Santorini We're going to be working with a local company to show the less touristy side of Santorini the areas that tourists don't necessarily visit Beyond Ia and Fida which are the main tourist spots that people tend to visit my memories and that I'm so excited about this cruise Is we are going to Corsica, Sardinia and Sicily, which are three places that have been on my bucket list for so long. And I'm so excited to explore them. They're gonna be linguistically so interesting. And the language nerd me is just freaking out about this because Corsican, Sardinian, and Sicilian are amazing. And we're going to Malta, so I get to hear Maltese. Oh my God, I think you can see me freaking out over here. I know, I know. What an itinerary. Oh, I can't wait. I'm so excited for you. And I can't wait to visit those places myself. We'll plan a linguist's trip to go see people. - Oh, that sounds great. - Yeah. - Yeah, that's basically what I do. Are there any local drinks they don't have to be alcoholic that you wanna mention as we come to a close? - I asked around for this one 'cause I couldn't think of anything. So we do have two distilleries here. There's one that makes a local gin, so it's Campion Gin. Campion is a flower that grows natively here. Then we have another distillery where they make a whiskey, a rum, and a gin. It's like a Trafalgar rum blackwater cove whiskey, which my dad is an absolute lover of single malt whiskey and he reads it very highly. Take that as a strong recommendation if you're into whiskey. So blackstrap cove, blackstrap cove whiskey, which is a place in Gibraltar. There is also a gin, which I can't recall the name of, but it's by the same distillery. On the kind of very classic Gibraltar drink side, we have something called Sun Cola. Non -alcoholic. This is like a little soft drink. The actual brand is called Sun Top, and they make like an orange drink. I think there's like a tropical one. There's like red berries, and then there's like the cola one. But the weird thing about this, it's not from Gibraltar. It's not Spanish. It's not British. Would you like to take a wild guess of what country this originates from? The Philippines. Denmark. Denmark. Denmark. Why? I don't know. No one seems to know why this is really popular. But it is. And like you can go to like one of the beach bars and you can get a frozen suntop where they have frozen them. They'll cut off the top and then you can eat it with a spoon. Like imagine just going and being like, I'd like, like a frozen, like, I don't know, Capricorn. Wait, is it in like a can or a bag? Carton. Oh, they come in a carton. But is it carbonated? No, it's soft. Oh, it's like a not fizzy. Is it a cola? Yeah, it's like cola flavor, but it's not carbonated. Ah, it's served in a carton, like a juice box. Yeah, it's a juice box. It is literally a juice box. So sun cola is a flat cola -flavored juice box that you can get frozen. -From Denmark. -Yeah. -From Denmark. -So random. What a beautiful world. -I don't understand, but I love it. -Can I help you? This has been so wonderful and so thorough. I thank you so much for coming to the show and telling us all about this really interesting place. I can't wait to visit. Here's some more genito, learn a little bit more on my own. but until then, I'll enjoy just continuing to see your beautiful photographs and your beautiful blog posts. Thank you for doing this really fun work. Thank you for inviting me. It was so fun speaking with you. Thank you so much. Is there anything else you want people to know about Gibraltar? Just come visit. Come check us out. Experience Gibraltar for yourself. Come stay for a night, two nights. Just come enjoy a little slice of Britain in the sun. - Oh, that sounds marvelous. I can't wait to come myself. Thank you, Penelope, to all of our listeners. Thank you wherever you go and whatever you like to drink. Always remember to enjoy your life and to never stop learning. Support us on Patreon. Grab the newsletter at motodiberri .com and subscribe to the YouTube channel at Motodiberri to watch the travel show, Motodiberri TV. Music for the show was composed by Arcilia Prosperi for the band O. Purchase their music at the link in the notes.