Gibraltar - The Strait Of Gibraltar: Where Africa Meets Europe (46/151)

Gibraltar - The Strait Of Gibraltar: Where Africa Meets Europe (46/151)

Africa meets Europe at the Straits of Gibraltar, where Hercules is said to have smashed through the Atlas mountains to connect the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. Today, the Straits are just as vital and multifaceted as in ancient days. Since ancient times, the Straits of Gibraltar have been of great importance as the confluence of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean. Prominent guardians loom on either side of the narrows: Jebel Musa mountain on the African side and the Rock of Gibraltar on the southern tip of Europe, known since ancient times as the Pillars of Hercules. Today, the much-frequented Strait is a hot spot for African emigration to Europe, where Muslim and Western worlds meet and peoples of all different nations live: While Gibraltar is under British rule; the exclave of Ceuta on the North African coast belongs to Spain. Crossing several borders, our itinerary leads from the surfing mecca Tarifa on the Andalusian coast to Tangier in Morocco, a city which became a magnet for the literary scene of the 20th Century. Thus the stories that emerge here reach all the way from Hercules to the modern day?