The cable car has been shut since 18 November 2025 and is not expected back until 2027. That matters more than it sounds, because almost every page answering the question in this title still sells you a ride to the summit, and this page did too until today. Here is the version that holds up in October 2026. This post was written in April 2026. Three of its selling points have since turned out to be wrong: it recommended the cable car, it said the border treaty came into force in early 2026, and it listed Edinburgh among the UK airports with flights here. All three are corrected below, and the pitch is still good without them. Gibraltar covers 6.8 square kilometres with a land border of 1.2 kilometres, and the Rock tops out at 426 metres, [all three figures per the territory's own reference data](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibraltar). It is smaller than most English market towns. You can walk from the Spanish frontier to the lighthouse at Europa Point in a long morning. Inside that footprint sits a limestone ridge rising straight out of the sea, a working harbour, a pedestrianised high street, half a dozen beaches, a nature reserve with wild Barbary macaques, a network of Second World War tunnels, and a land crossing into Andalusia. The density is the point. A long weekend in Barcelona is an exercise in deciding what to miss. A long weekend here is the whole territory twice over, with time left to sit on a balcony and count container ships through the Strait. You finish each day having been somewhere rather than having queued for it. A long weekend with almost no admin. English everywhere, British plugs, pounds, a familiar legal system. [Visit Gibraltar lists five UK departure points](https://www.visitgibraltar.gi/get-here): British Airways from Heathrow, and easyJet from Gatwick, Manchester, Bristol and Birmingham. Flight time is about 2 hours 55 minutes. There is no Edinburgh route, which our April version got wrong. Frequencies are modest, roughly nine BA flights a week from Heathrow and seven easyJet from Gatwick, with Manchester and Bristol on two and three a week, so book before you commit to dates. Reliable winter sun, with the caveat that the headline number is disputed. Published annual sunshine totals for Gibraltar range from about 2,698 to 2,778 hours on the two most consistent sources, and [the climate record](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Gibraltar) gives an annual mean of 18.8 degrees Celsius. Some travel sites quote 3,000 or even 4,000 hours. We used to say close to 3,000. The honest figure is closer to 2,700, which is still a great deal more than anywhere in Britain. January daytime highs in the mid teens mean you can eat outside in winter. Month by month numbers are in our [climate guide](/blog/gibraltar-weather-climate-guide). Shopping that is actually worth the suitcase space. No VAT and no sales tax, which bites hardest on perfume, watches, spirits, tobacco and electronics. Main Street is a twenty minute walk end to end and nobody hassles you. Our [duty free guide](/blog/duty-free-shopping-gibraltar-guide) sets out where the real margin is rather than where the signage is loudest. The Rock itself, on foot. This is the part that changed. The Upper Rock Nature Reserve is fully open: St Michael's Cave, the Great Siege Tunnels, the Skywalk, the Moorish Castle, the viewpoints and the macaques. Only the cable car is gone. [The Nature Reserve's own page](https://naturereserve.gi/experiences/cable-car/) describes a full refurbishment with reopening expected in 2027, after a closure that began on 18 November 2025. About 230 Barbary macaques live on the Upper Rock, the only wild monkeys in Europe, and the species is listed as endangered. They are still there and the building works have not moved them. Do not feed them and do not touch them. |Way up the Rock in 2026|Rough time|What it costs| |Walk from town via Jews' Gate or the Moorish Castle|45 to 90 minutes|Reserve entry only, around 30 GBP for an adult| |Mediterranean Steps, the steep scenic route|1 to 2 hours|Reserve entry only, proper shoes essential| |Shared official taxi tour, Gibraltar Taxi Association|About 90 minutes|Tour fee, reserve entry usually bundled| |Private taxi tour for up to six people|About 90 minutes|A few hundred pounds for the vehicle| |Cable car|Not running|Closed since 18 November 2025, expected back in 2027| Times and prices both move, and the taxi figures are typical rather than fixed, so confirm what is bundled before you set off. The full breakdown is in our [cable car status guide](/blog/gibraltar-cable-car-open-closed-guide). A Spanish day trip included in the price. The frontier is a fifteen minute walk from the centre of town. [Routine passport checks at the land crossing ended on 15 July 2026](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/7/15/gibraltar-border-controls-lifted-is-it-part-of-schengen-the-uk-or-both), when the UK and EU treaty entered provisional application, having been signed in Brussels the d