3 forgotten gems to visit during a shore excursion in Gibraltar!

Most people visiting Gibraltar say hello to our famous macaques and take in the breath-taking views, but did you know there's so much more to explore! Here are our top 7 of Gibraltar's lesser-visited attractions.

O'Hara's Battery

I know we said hidden gems, but just stay with me. While O'Hara's Battery is well known, it isn't quite so well visited.

The site itself is a bit out of the way at the highest publicly accessible part of the Rock at an elevation of over 425 meters (1,400 feet), but that doesn't make its story any less fascinating or the views any less spectacular.

The battery was constructed alongside its sister battery, Lord Airey's Battery (currently under refurbishment), in the early 1890s and is one of three surviving 9.2-inch gun emplacements at the upper ridge of the Rock, the others being Lord Airey's Battery and Breakneck Battery, the latter still on Ministry of Defence property and not accessible to the public.

The battery wasn't always home to a 9.6-inch gun; its first mounted gun was a 6-inch breech-loading gun, which was replaced with its existing 9.2-inch Mark X BL gun in 1901. it was last fired during a training exercise in 1976.

The City Under Siege Exhibition

Recently refurbished, the exhibition sits in buildings likely among the first buildings ever constructed by the British in Gibraltar, dating back to the beginning of the 18th century. The area itself is known as Willis’s Magazine, although there is no record of who Willis was or why it was given that name. It is thought to have been built originally as a magazine store.

The story of the civilian population is often forgotten for vast segments of Gibraltar's history, but the various exhibits within this area depict how the civilian population lived during the late 18th and early 19th centuries and relate the fascinating stories that have passed down on how the first British settlers of Gibraltar had to cope with life.

If you think prices are high today, remember that during the Great Siege a cabbage cost the equivalent of two and a half days of a soldier’s pay!

The Runway

This may seem like an odd choice of place to visit, and for those of you in the know, it may seem even stranger that im listing it as a "hidden gem".

While the runway is well-used by those arriving at Gibraltar International Airport, for those arriving via the port or driving in from spain its suprisingly easy to miss. Gone are the days when all vehicular traffic to Spain had to cross it, as the Kingway tunnel was opened in March 2023.

The land the runway sits on is mostly reclamation, making use of the rubble blasted out of the WW2 tunnels. The remainder of the land was formerly a horse racing track, and before that, a quarantine zone, although if you ask the Spanish government, they will simply tell you it is "stolen land".

While cars and buses no longer cross the runway, people and bicycles still do, and it remains one of the only commercial runways you can walk across in the world, and it is an amazing photo opportunity for all visitors to the rock.

So what are you waiting for to book a tour and visit some of these places with us?