Running south and east from Seville, the road signs count down the kms to Algeciras, the teeming port city on the Mediterranean and, further along, to Malaga, the Coste del Sol vacation niche. But never listed nor hinted at is Gibraltar, “The Rock”, in British hands since way back.

Lacking the textual announcements, you might fear you’ll miss the turn; but you need not worry. Even in gray-skyed March, the drizzle and fading light can’t mask the monolith. It is its own announcement. Its undeniability clashes with the pointed refusal-to-acknowledge attitude of its human neighbors.

Algeciras is a whirl of commerce. The ships in dock, or laying close by, are pumping goods in and out of this corner of Spain (and hence, this corner of Europe) at a heavy pace. In layers out from the container cranes are warehouses, yards, distribution and breaking-down points, all manner of specialty shippers and businesses concerned with collecting enough freight to warrant a shipment, or in efficiently de-aggregating arriving pallets into a dozen or more sub streams of goods. The lights in the city burn all night.

Approaching the border with Gibraltar, on the Spanish side, condos and shops and the rest of a standard build-out for a C.d.S. beach resort town packs the landward side of the highway. Eventually, miles later, the twin portals of Spanish exit and British entrance are ten meters apart. Our Spanish agent is all business, with quick pointed questions and brisk stamps. The UK guy recognizes the US Passport from a distance, even closed, and passes us in with a wave.

Here it is, then, clinging to the side of a mountain, a compressed little slice of Britain. We saw some historic military installs, and some signs of purposeful modern stuff, but mostly it was just a discordant jutting-out of mushy peas and dinner coats and propriety in a countryside of nature and flavor and drama.

From the Referendum Steps, we can look up the hill, and see the Union Jack riding the breeze.