What an oddity is Gibraltar – so ordinary, from certain angles, and yet so spectacularly out of place. A stray chunk of Blighty, replete with most of our familiar high-street shops and banks, transplanted to the far end of continental Europe, where the Iberian landmass heaves itself up a final limestone precipice and almost tips over onto North Africa.
The Rock, as we know it, was ceded to the British Crown as a spoil of war some 310 years ago, and only granted “city” status in 2022 (correcting a longstanding admin error). While residents remain pretty emphatic about their sovereignty, post-Brexit convolutions may soon see them absorbed into the EU’s Schengen area, potentially allowing visitors to skip across that thin frontier from Spain without even showing a passport.
