Europa Point is the southernmost extremity of Gibraltar, though not of the Iberian Peninsula itself -- that distinction belongs to Punta de Tarifa across the bay. What Europa Point does define is something arguably more significant: the boundary between the Strait of Gibraltar, which connects to the Atlantic Ocean, and the Alboran Sea, the westernmost arm of the Mediterranean. The flat area at the end of the Rock of Gibraltar is surprisingly open after the dramatic limestone cliffs that precede it. On clear days, North Africa is plainly visible -- the mountains of the Rif in Morocco, the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, the coastline stretching toward the horizon. The Bay of Gibraltar curves away to the northwest, with Spanish towns lining its shores.

Europa Point has been fortified since the Moorish period, and successive occupiers -- Spanish, then British -- added their own layers of defense. Harding's Battery, built in the 19th century, housed guns capable of firing 800-pound projectiles across the strait, a range that made the point strategically crucial for controlling maritime traffic between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. The Europa Sunken Magazine, which stored ammunition for these guns, has been converted into a visitor center. In 2013, an original RML 12.5-inch 38-ton gun was mounted on a replica carriage at the battery, and a memorial to the Polish general Wladyslaw Sikorski -- who died in a plane crash at Gibraltar in 1943 -- was relocated here from elsewhere on the Rock.

The Shrine of Our Lady of Europe holds a small wooden statue of the Virgin and Child, only 0.6 meters tall, polychromed in red, blue, and gold. For over two centuries, ships passing through the strait saluted the shrine, and mariners came ashore with gifts and oil to keep a light burning before the image. The tradition faded when the British took Gibraltar in 1704, but in 1979 Pope John Paul II officially approved the title of Our Lady of Europe as Patroness of Gibraltar. The Ibrahim-al-Ibrahim Mosque, completed at a cost of five million pounds, is the only purpose-built mosque in Gibraltar, serving over a thousand Muslims in the territory. Its school, library, and lecture hall make it a community center as much as a place of worship. Between these two houses of faith, the Europa Point Lighthouse -- built between 1838 and 1841 by Governor Sir Alexander Woodford and automated in 1994 -- sends its beam 27 kilometers across the water, the southernmost lighthouse maintained by Trinity House and the only one outside the British Isles.

Gibraltarians call the lighthouse la farola in Llanito, the local hybrid of Spanish and English that captures the territory's layered identity as precisely as any monument could. Europa Point itself was refurbished in 2011 at a cost of 4.4 million pounds, with walking paths and open spaces that make it one of Gibraltar's most visited spots. The cricket oval where the Gibraltar national team plays sits nearby -- perhaps the only cricket ground on earth where you can watch a match with Africa on one side and the Mediterranean on the other. The Dudley Ward Tunnel connects Europa Point to the eastern side of the Rock, including Sandy Bay and Catalan Bay, reopened in 2010 after an eight-year closure following a fatal rockfall. From the air, Europa Point is the southernmost pixel of the Rock's silhouette -- a flat shelf where lighthouse, mosque, and shrine stand together at the continent's edge.