Walking up
Free with the reserve ticket, and the only way to see the parts nobody else does.
The only way up that costs nothing beyond the reserve ticket you would buy anyway.
There are two walking routes, and they are not alike. The road up from town is the steady option: about an hour of tarmac to the top, hard on the calves but never on the nerves. The Mediterranean Steps are the finest walk on the Rock — a military stepped path up the wild south and east faces from Jews' Gate to O'Hara's Battery at the summit, restored in 2007 and genuinely strenuous: most people take an hour and a half to two hours going up, with exposed sections that are not for anyone shaky on heights.
Both start points are reachable without a tour. Jews' Gate, the reserve's southern entrance beside the Pillars of Hercules, is a steep half hour on foot from Grand Parade up Engineer Road, a Route 3 bus at £1.80, or about £10 in a taxi — the way most walkers arrive. Buy the ticket at the gate; it covers the cave, the tunnels and the apes as well, so the walk itself adds nothing to the bill.
Respect the season. There is no water on the steps and no shade on the upper flights — carry a litre each, start early or late between June and September, and turn back if the cloud is down: the path is exposed and the rock is polished. Coming down, the road is longer but far easier on the knees, and the reserve's taxi pickup line brings a car up for a fee if the legs are done.
Our tip
Steps up, road down. You get the Rock's best walk while your legs are fresh and a gentle descent when they are not — and in summer, be on the path before nine.
Where this rating comes from
This is the rating for the ticket, not for this site on its own.
Walking up is not sold or reviewed separately anywhere we can licence, so it carries no score of its own — and we would rather show you nothing than invent one. What we can tell you is how people rate the ticket that admits you to it, which is the thing you actually buy.
The facts
- Cost
- Reserve ticket only
- £30 at the gate; covers all 17 reserve sites
- By road
- About 1 hour to the top
- Tarmac all the way; steady, not technical
- By the steps
- 1.5 – 2 hours up
- Jews' Gate to O'Hara's Battery; strenuous, exposed in places
- Getting to Jews' Gate
- Route 3 bus £1.80 · taxi ~£10
- Or a steep half hour on foot from Grand Parade
- Carry
- A litre of water each
- No water and no shade on the upper flights
- Coming down
- The road, or the reserve's taxi pickup
- Easier on the knees than reversing the steps