Compass

Upper Rock

All routes

Siege and Galleries

Two long tunnel systems, cool and underground, plus the Military Heritage Centre and a run of north-face batteries between them. This is the route that still works at 2pm in August, and it's an easy one to do with kids. If you only have 1h45, the core is just three stops: City Under Siege, the WWII Tunnels, and the Great Siege Tunnels. Want more of a workout? Add the optional North Face extension via Middle Hill and Rock Gun for another 2.5 km and 90 minutes of climbing. 3.48 km, easy-moderate, 4 to 4h30.

Two-page notebook panorama of the Rock of Gibraltar from the west: the sheer north face on the left, the summit ridge running south and dropping to the low tail at Europa Point, the town along the shoreline, sailing boats in the bay and the Spanish coast as a pale band on the right. The Summit Circle is drawn over it as a dotted ink line with five numbered stops: the cable car top station, Signal Hill, the Skywalk, St Michael's Cave and the Apes' Den, listed in order underneath.
  1. 1Cable Car Top Station
  2. 2Signal Hill
  3. 3Skywalk
  4. 4St Michael's Cave
  5. 5Apes' Den
  6. then 185 m back up
Distance
3.48 km
Climb
172 m up, 172 m down
On foot
4 h 15 m
Effort
Easy · steps

Take this walk offline.

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The walk

Moorish Castle to Willis's Road, mostly underground. The best route on a hot afternoon.

Before you set off

  • Two litres each in summer. The only water on the route is at St Michael's Cabin, halfway round.

  • The gates shut at 19:00 in summer and 18:00 in winter, and no path is lit. Work backwards from closing time.

  • Feeding a macaque is illegal and carries fines up to £4,000. Keep food out of sight and bags closed.

What you will actually see

12 stops. The three with drawings are the ones worth stopping properly for. The rest are short: a minute of narration to keep you walking, and a reason to look at something.

  1. 1

    Moorish Castle Ticket Office

    95 m approx.

  2. 2

    Moorish Castle / Tower of Homage

    93 m approx.

    The keep the word Gibraltar is named after, shot at through fourteen sieges and still standing. Currently closed, though, so you look rather than enter.

    Ink and wash plate of the Moorish Castle's Tower of Homage: a square crenellated keep of rendered stone with the curtain wall running down the slope below it towards the roofs of the town.
  3. 3

    Middle Hill Battery

    300 m approx. · can be skipped

  4. 4

    Rock Gun Battery

    385 m approx. · can be skipped

  5. 5

    City Under Siege

    140 m approx.

  6. 6

    WWII Tunnels

    120 m approx.

    Six men volunteered to be sealed inside this rock for a year with a radio. The chamber was forgotten until cavers found it in 1996.

    Ink cutaway of the sealed Operation Tracer chamber inside the Rock: a bricked-up entrance passage on the left, bunks, crates of stores and a wireless set inside the cut chamber, and a narrow observation slit on the right looking out to sea.
  7. 7

    Princess Caroline's / Military Heritage Centre

    150 m approx. · can be skipped

  8. 8

    Great Siege Tunnels

    195 m approx.

    Galleries cut by hand through solid limestone so the guns could finally fire downwards at the Spanish lines.

    Ink and wash plate looking out through a hand-cut embrasure in the Great Siege Tunnels: a rough limestone arch framing daylight, with a small cannon on a wooden carriage silhouetted in the opening.
  9. 9

    Princess Anne's Battery

    125 m approx. · can be skipped

  10. 10

    Governor's Lookout Battery

    175 m approx. · can be skipped

  11. 11

    Tovey Battery

    160 m approx. · can be skipped

  12. 12

    Willis's Road Bus Stop

    90 m approx.

How sure we are

Every claim on this walk is marked. The Rock has wonderful stories attached to it and some of them are not true, which is more interesting than pretending otherwise.

  • Established

    Sourced and not seriously disputed. If a specialist reads this, they will recognise it.

  • Still argued

    Real evidence on more than one side. We have given you the version most researchers hold, and flagged that it is not settled.

  • Told, not proven

    A story people tell about this place. Worth hearing, worth repeating, and not evidence of anything.