This trip was inspired by Gibraltar. Truthfully, I had been wanting to go to Morocco for a long time, and I knew that if we were in Gibraltar, we would simply have to go to Morocco. How could you not? So we started with that. We added a stop in London on the way in, a lunch in Spain in the middle, and a week in Scotland on the end. That's how we ended up with a mishmosh trip that we quite enjoyed.
As for Gibraltar itself, most guidebooks recommend a day trip, but we disagree. It's worth staying a few nights. I loved watching the sunset on Spain and Morocco from our balcony each night, and there's something to be said for being somewhere at a time of day when the day-trippers aren't there. You feel like you have it to yourself.
You could fly there, like we did, but know that it is one of the most dangerous airports for airplane landings. We didn't have any issues on the way in, but on our departure, our incoming aircraft was diverted to Málaga, Spain due to the winds in Gibraltar. We were then forced to embark on quite the journey, which involved walking across the border to Spain, taking buses to Málaga, getting into Heathrow at 1 AM, and missing our connection to Glasgow. British Airways was shockingly inept at handling a situation that we discovered happens quite regularly. Should we return to Gibraltar, we would most likely fly to Málaga from the start and not run the risk of issues at Gibraltar.
Here's my other issue with British Airways (and why I downgraded them on my airlines page): for a flight listed at 2 hours 45 minutes, there was literally no entertainment system on the plane. They had overhead screens that showed the map the entire time. Furthermore, the "meal" was a tiny sandwich smaller than my fist. It didn't seem on par with BA's usual service.
Had we known the first night that monkeys were able to climb onto the balconies at the Rock Hotel, I would have been much more alert. As it was, we had not a care in the world as we drank our wine and watched the sunset. The second night, however, we quickly learned there's nothing these monkeys can't climb, particularly hotel balconies. This guy was the first of three that night. It was slightly terrifying.
When you think you're getting out of Gibraltar, but no pilots are able to land the planes due to winds...
Portugal exceeded our expectations in every way! It's a beautiful country with so many things to see and do. The language was a little difficult for me to pronounce (they kept thinking I was speaking Spanish), but just about everyone speaks English. It's also a small enough country that you can see a lot in a short amount of time.
We flew on British Airways through London. Even though they were in the midst of a very frustrating strike, we managed to get there and back without any disruptions. We thanked those who continued to work our flights on the days of the strike! As for the service, we loved it. They served free food and drink (good quality, too), and the video-on-demand was good enough to keep us entertained the whole way home. The other nice thing was that we were able to do a stopover in London for a night.
We loved it and would go back any time! Madrid, Granada, Ronda, and Córdoba are all places we would recommend.
We flew into Madrid on US Airways from Chicago connecting in Philadelphia. So yeah, this trip was a while ago. Today we'd fly direct on Iberia Airlines, most likely.