Gibraltar WWII Tunnels

[sus809]

I've read about tours to the Great Siege Tunnels. We are interested in the WWII Tunnels......are they the same and if not are the WWII Tunnels worth the trip.

 

Thank you.

[Hlitner]

I've read about tours to the Great Siege Tunnels. We are interested in the WWII Tunnels......are they the same and if not are the WWII Tunnels worth the trip.

 

Thank you.

 

They are not the same. The so-called Great Siege Tunnels are essentially at the upper levels while the so-called WWII Tunnels are at what was the middle levels. Keep in mind that there were originally over 30 miles of tunnels and what you see now is just a tiny sample (can't imagine walking around 30 miles of tunnels anyway). Whether they are worth the time to visit would simply depend on your own interests and how much time you have on the Gibraltar. I guess many would say it makes sense to visit one of the open tunnels just to get an idea of what its all about.

 

Hank

[sus809]

Thank you Hank.....you were very helpful. Our ship will be in Gibraltar from 8 am - 11 pm so we will have plenty of time to explore the WWII Tunnels and everything else. Again, you for your explanation regarding the tunnels.

[Hlitner]

Thank you Hank.....you were very helpful. Our ship will be in Gibraltar from 8 am - 11 pm so we will have plenty of time to explore the WWII Tunnels and everything else. Again, you for your explanation regarding the tunnels.

 

That is long enough to see just about everything :). Make sure to simply enjoy the pedestrian street in town and relax at one of the cafes and perhaps have a "Pint" as they still do sell some pints (as opposed to liters).

 

Hank

[John Bull]

The Great Siege Tunnel/galleries are included in the Upper Rock taxi tour, which I'd recommend to anyone - and especially to those who want to visit the WW2 tunnels.

The tours are from the cruise terminal in shared taxis/small vans at £22 or €25 per person, no need to pre-book as long as you're not among the last to dis-embark. All entry fees are included in the price.

Tour takes 90 - 120 minutes, & visits the Jewish monument/southern overlook, St Michael's Cave, the apes den at the east/west overlook on the ridge, and the Great Siege tunnel.

At the end of the tour you are brought down past the entrance to the WW2 tunnels (not included in the tour) & taken back to the ship or dropped by Casemates Square at the bottom of Main Street.

So if you want to visit the WW2 tunnels, just ask your driver to drop you off there on the way back down.

 

Tours of the WW2 tunnels are always guided.The exit is higher up the Rock than the entrance, your guide will walk you back to the entrance.

To get to town from the WW2 tunnels, it's a short walk past the Moorish Castle (you might want to visit that too) to a bus stop on the street-corner a couple of hundred yards beyond the Moorish Castle. Bus will take you to town, the route is circuitous but all bus travel in Gib (other than the shuttle to the Spanish border) is free.

 

This is all exactly as we have done.

 

If you don't want to take the Upper Rock tour, its a little more complicated.

The walk up to the WW2 tunnels from town is pretty strenuous - not a great idea before a walking tour of the tunnels.

You can take a bus from Casemates Square to the bus stop that I mentioned, & walk up past the Moorish Castle. At the castle you'll have to pay 50 pence per person admission to the Upper Rock Nature Reserve (this isn't for admission for the castle or tunnels)

Or you can take a taxi from town. There's a £10 Nature Reserve vehicle entry fee at the castle - I don't know if this applies to taxis, if it does the driver can drop you by the castle & you walk the rest.

 

We were pretty disappointed by the WW2 tunnels - boring, not well-presented, no significant artefacts (or even copies) or dioramas.

In those circumstances you need a really good guide, informed, interesting, plenty of background history, lots of little stories. Our guide was a pleasant young lad but he was clueless - we think he was the operator's son helping out during a break from college.

That said, our visit was a couple of years back & not long after they were opened up to the public. Recent reviews on TripAdvisor are very good, most guides are highly-praised & clearly things are much better.

So hopefully you'll have a more memorable visit than ours.

 

JB :)

[Cornishpastyman1]

Hello

We did these on August 18th 2013. This has some details http://www.discovergibraltar.com/rockfort.htm It is good for facts about the tunnels but no help in telling you how to do it.

 

I don't think you can pre-book this as an individual, although it was included as part of one of the ship's tours. However as we wanted more flexibility to see the rest of Gibraltar on our own we took a chance that we could just walk up and do it, and it worked.

 

We approached the entrance as we walked down from the Siege Tunnels, so it was on our right in a bend in the road. The entrance is very obvious but there was a sign propped on a chair saying 'WWII tunnels guide back in 20 minutes' - without any indication when the 20 minutes started !

 

We thought this a bit odd as we knew the tour took an hour, and unless there was another person besides the guide wondered how that could have been meaningfully placed there, but as the Moorish castle (included on the Upper Rock ticket) were only 50 yards away we went to look at that, returning 15 minutes later. And as we came back we saw the guide bringing back his previous tour.

 

So we did the tour. It costs £8 pp (young child free) and you cover about 900m of the 34 miles of tunnels. I thought it was superb but we did have the marvellous Hans Jorg as the guide. Humorous, enthusiastic and extremely knowledgeable, he really made the experience, and I can well relate to JB's impression in that with a lesser guide this would have been so much less good. Hans had all the qualities JB's guide lacked, so if you do this I hope you go with him.

 

So good luck - Tony

[sus809]

Thank you everyone....you've been very helpful. I'm printing our your responses for reference. We're really looking forward to visiting Gibraltar ... now that we've got great suggestions and insight.

[Cornishpastyman1]

Hello

We did these on August 18th 2013. This has some details http://www.discovergibraltar.com/rockfort.htm It is good for facts about the tunnels but no help in telling you how to do it.

 

I don't think you can pre-book this as an individual, although it was included as part of one of the ship's tours. However as we wanted more flexibility to see the rest of Gibraltar on our own we took a chance that we could just walk up and do it, and it worked.

 

We approached the entrance as we walked down from the Siege Tunnels, so it was on our right in a bend in the road. The entrance is very obvious but there was a sign propped on a chair saying 'WWII tunnels guide back in 20 minutes' - without any indication when the 20 minutes started !

 

We thought this a bit odd as we knew the tour took an hour, and unless there was another person besides the guide wondered how that could have been meaningfully placed there, but as the Moorish castle (included on the Upper Rock ticket) were only 50 yards away we went to look at that, returning 15 minutes later. And as we came back we saw the guide bringing back his previous tour.

 

So we did the tour. It costs £8 pp (young child free) and you cover about 900m of the 34 miles of tunnels. I thought it was superb but we did have the marvellous Hans Jorg as the guide. Humorous, enthusiastic and extremely knowledgeable, he really made the experience, and I can well relate to JB's impression in that with a lesser guide this would have been so much less good. Hans had all the qualities JB's guide lacked, so if you do this I hope you go with him.

 

So good luck - Tony

Video of our tour with Hans