August 5-7, 2026
After spending three nights exploring Morocco, I was ready to leave my brief stint in Africa behind and begin the European portion of my trip. I headed to the port in Tangier, boarded a ferry across the Strait of Gibraltar, and a few hours later found myself in Spain – my first European country.
This was part of a 5-week trip through six countries, which also gave me my first experiences in both Africa and Europe. With both now checked off, Antarctica is officially the only continent I have left to visit.
I only had two nights in Spain before continuing on to Portugal (and later returning to Spain), but I packed quite a bit into that short time, including a day exploring Gibraltar. Here’s what my first two days in Europe looked like.
My day started in Tangier, Morocco, with a hotel breakfast and then a several-hour excursion. From there I headed to a museum before going back to my hotel in the early afternoon.
I was planning to take a 5 pm ferry across the Strait of Gibraltar to Tarifa, Spain – this would be my entry point and first town in Europe. Despite the fact that it was only around 2 pm, I decided to head to the ferry port super early since I had nothing else planned and wasn’t sure how long the process would take. The amazing thing was that they actually put me on the 3pm ferry for no charge – I was glad I had arrived so early!
Funnily enough, after getting inside the ferry terminal I still had to wait until 2:30 before they even opened up passport control. There weren’t too many people, and I got my passport stamped and was through in about 15 minutes.
I did have one interesting experience while waiting in line. There was a gentleman in a wheelchair with some sort of red passport without a visible label, accompanied by a medical assistant and a woman in a khaki military uniform. They prioritized him when he arrived at passport control, but I had no idea who he was or why he was being given priority. I guess I’ll never know!
Eventually, it was time to board the ferry, and I made it on without a hitch. They were definitely thorough about checking tickets and passports, though – I had mine scanned about 3 different times before I was actually on the boat.
The ferry ride was a little under an hour and a half long. It was rather bumpy, but it was still a very beautiful day out – not to mention there were some awesome views of Jebel Musa, a Moroccan mountain often considered to be the southern Pillar of Hercules, with the Rock of Gibraltar being the northern one. I also bought a sandwich and spent some time watching the water for wildlife, though unfortunately I didn’t end up seeing anything.
At the time, Spain was actually an hour ahead of Morocco’s time zone, so by the time we arrived it was around 5:30. (Interestingly enough, as of the day I am publishing this article, Morocco is now permanently 2 hours behind Spain until late October when European countries change their clocks for Daylight Saving Time.) Passport control in Tarifa was fairly easy, though sadly I did not get a stamp. But I ended up making it to my hotel at 6 pm – an hour and a half earlier than expected!
After relaxing for a couple hours, I went out around 8:15. I walked down along the beach, and then toward the narrow peninsula at the southern end of town, where you can see the Atlantic Ocean on one side and the Mediterranean Sea on the other. I was a little too early for sunset, so I headed up toward a historic castle that was built in Tarifa more than 1,000 years ago. As I would come to learn, Spain is full of castles!
From the area around the castle, I got a great view of Morocco across the Strait.
I eventually headed back toward the peninsula to watch the sunset over the Atlantic. It was truly a gorgeous sight. Tarifa also seemed to be full of life. There were tons of people along the beach, groups my age hanging out at bars along the shoreline, and families gathered to watch the sunset. It would end up being one of my favorite destinations in Spain.
At this point, it was time to get some dinner. Keep in mind, sunset was at around 9:25 pm! Luckily, Spanish restaurants are known for staying open late, with many people not eating dinner until 9 or 10. I found a place called Restaurante Almacén that seemed to have a lot of locals, so I figured I’d give it a try. I ordered sardine focaccia and octopus leg (pata de pulpo).
The focaccia was good, although the sardine aftertaste wasn’t my favorite. I was much more surprised by how good the octopus was. It was really tasty, and the texture almost reminded me of ribs!
My waitress spoke hardly any English, and I heard very little while I was in Tarifa, besides maybe the bus stop. It felt like a very local Spanish town, and had quite a fun and relaxing atmosphere.
Of course, as such, I decided to end the night with some ice cream. I got three scoops (mango, alfajores [an Argentinian dessert], and unicorn [cotton candy?]) before heading back to the hotel.
My first full day in Europe was one I had been somewhat anxious about for a while, mainly because I was unsure about public transportation and luggage storage. The plan was to take a day trip to Gibraltar before heading up to Seville in the evening. Luckily, it went pretty well.
I was up and fully packed by 7:15 am. Before leaving with all my things, I went to the beach about a mile away to watch the sunrise at the same point where I had watched the sunset the previous night. While it was not directly over the Mediterranean, it was still beautiful. I basically had to run back from here, as sunrise was around 7:35, while the bus I wanted to take was at 8. I made it back, grabbed my stuff, dropped the keys in the box, and rushed to the station.
After the 8 am bus there wouldn’t have been another one for over an hour, so I’m glad I made it on time. The first leg was to the city of Algeciras, across the bay from Gibraltar. This is where I had my first glimpse of the Rock, and I was astonished by how huge it was! I had to wait at the station for about 30 minutes for my next bus, so I got a snack in the meantime. From there I was off to La Línea de la Concepción, the town bordering Gibraltar. Funnily enough, I had the same driver on the second bus!
I ended up making it to Gibraltar around 10 am, and my bus wouldn’t be leaving La Línea until 5:15 pm, giving me a lot more time than I had initially anticipated when planning this day. Unfortunately, my plan to store my luggage at Gibraltar Airport didn’t work out, as their luggage system was down. However, I had a backup at a place called Consignas La Campana in La Línea, a hostel that also offers luggage storage. The lady there was very nice, and it wasn’t too expensive (€10 per piece of luggage for all-day storage).
Most of the rest of the day was spent exploring Gibraltar. I went to Grand Casemates Square before climbing the Rock. Along the way, I saw the WWII Tunnels, an old fort, Barbary macaques, St. Michael’s Cave, Apes’ Den, and Devil’s Gap Battery. I ended my time there with lunch in a pub and some ice cream before heading out. I’ll do a full write-up about my experience in Gibraltar at some point, as it’s definitely deserving of a full article.
Having made great time, I went to get my bags before walking to the bus station in La Línea. I ended up waiting for about 45 minutes, but that was fine by me, as I was completely exhausted from all the walking and climbing I had done.
I had quite a long bus ride – it ended up being nearly 4 hours, with lots of stops on the way. We actually headed back towards Tarifa, and unfortunately, on that part of the route I sat next to a rather unpleasant woman who was constantly talking on the phone and was quite rude. I think she didn’t like the fact that I was sitting in the front row with her, but that was my assigned seat through FlixBus, though it seemed like most people ignored the seating assignments. For most of the rest of the way to Seville, though, I sat next to an older guy who was pretty chill.
The one interesting experience I had on the bus was around halfway through the ride. I’m not sure why, but we were stopped by the Guardia Civil, a Spanish law-enforcement agency with military status. They had a drug-sniffing dog on board and even made one guy get off the bus to have his bag searched. He must have been clean, though, since he got right back on board afterward.
We finally got to Seville around 10 pm. I was planning to take the local bus to my hotel, but I couldn’t figure out which one was the right one, and I really didn’t feel like bothering with it. So, I just walked the 30 minutes to the hotel. It was definitely rough after the 10+ miles I had already walked that day, including hiking up and down the Rock of Gibraltar, but eventually I made it.
The last thing I did was get some dinner around 11 pm at a place called Magdalena Pizzería & Kebab. For only €9, I got a chicken and beef dürüm, fries, and a drink. It was delicious food, and there was quite a lot of it as well. For a guy who had walked 12 miles, hiked up over 1,000 feet, and traveled nearly 6 hours by bus that day alone, it was extremely satisfying.
I stayed in Seville for one very specific reason: Plaza de España. You see, I’m a huge Star Wars nerd, and several scenes from Attack of the Clones were filmed here. After returning to Spain from Portugal, I would also visit three other locations used in the filming of Andor, so this was really only the beginning of my little Star Wars pilgrimage through Spain. My plan was simple: walk to the plaza, get some pictures, and then head back to my hotel before leaving Seville.
It was about a 30-minute walk from my hotel, though along the way I passed the beautiful cathedral I had seen the night before. One thing I quickly noticed about Spain was just how many churches and cathedrals there were, many of them hundreds of years old. Seville Cathedral was no exception, having been completed more than 500 years ago.
After about 30 minutes of walking, I arrived at Plaza de España. Unfortunately, the famous water features weren’t running when I visited, possibly because of the severe drought affecting Spain at the time. Even so, I was really excited to finally be there. I wandered around, found some of the specific locations used in Attack of the Clones, and naturally got a very nerdy sense of excitement from seeing them in person! I also noticed there were individually designed alcoves representing each province in Spain, which was really cool.
By this point, it was around 10 am, so I headed back to the hotel, gathered my things, and left for the bus station. Just after 11, I was on my way to Portugal!
It took around two and a half hours to get to my “bus layover” at the Faro Airport. This was the first time since Canada (country #2 in 2008) that I entered a new country by ground transport, and the first time by bus. Timing-wise, I actually went an hour back again, so it was only around 12:35 pm when we arrived. Later, I would continue on to Lisbon, but that is a story for another day.
My first two days in Europe had been quite the whirlwind. In just those two days, I had traveled through Spain, spent a day exploring Gibraltar, crossed into Portugal, and experienced three different languages: Spanish, English, and Portuguese. It was a pretty exciting introduction to Europe for sure, though I was looking forward to exploring yet another new country. For the next four nights, Portugal would be my home – and I still had many more places to visit all throughout southern Europe!