, while a grand structure, is run down, its rolling gardens out of place between the docks and tenement buildings. In its time it hosted movie stars and politicians: Orson Welles and Ava Gardener, Roosevelt and Churchill (both as Prime Minister and earlier, as Telegraph reporter at the Algeciras Conference on the fate of Morocco in 1906). Its carefully restored){kind=link}
Mr Henderson’s Railway was built so British soldiers could swap the sweltering coast for the Andalusian hills; now tourists can enjoy it too
Gibraltar has always been an outpost. In antiquity it was one of the Pillars of Hercules on which were inscribed the warning to sailors: “nothing further beyond”. Its name derives from the Berber military commander who landed there and began the Moorish conquest of Spain in 711 AD. A thousand years and 14 sieges later the Rock became a British fortified-enclave. However, under the blistering Spanish sun its confines bred fever and mutiny. The inhabitants craved access to the mainland, looking up to the cooler mountains of Ronda, two days’ ride away up rocky, bandit-stricken trails.
To cater to this need, Alexander Henderson founded the Algeciras-Gibraltar Railway Company in 1888 in a deal with the Spanish government. Henderson had already built railroads across the mountains and jungles of South America. Not permitted to run the railway onto British soil, Henderson arranged a daily steamboat across the bay to the first station on the line at Algeciras, and all materials were shipped from England, right down to the station clocks. The result was – and still is – one of Europe’s most remarkable train journeys, but which today takes tourists, rather than British army officers, to Ronda in 90 minutes for €11.50.
To ensure comfortable digs both before boarding and at journey’s end, Henderson also hired the architect of The Savoy to build the Hotel Reina Cristina at Algeciras and a sister establishment, the Hotel Reina Victoria, in Ronda. There are also stops in San Roque and Gaucín, offering the chance to break up the journey.
Today, Algeciras is an industrial port city and the Reina Cristina (rooms from £90), while a grand structure, is run down, its rolling gardens out of place between the docks and tenement buildings. In its time it hosted movie stars and politicians: Orson Welles and Ava Gardener, Roosevelt and Churchill (both as Prime Minister and earlier, as Telegraph reporter at the Algeciras Conference on the fate of Morocco in 1906). Its carefully restored twin in Ronda, the Reina Victoria (rooms from £100), remains a lovely hotel.