Old San Juan

We spent most of our 4 days in San Juan in the old city.  This is really quite a small area of about 8 blocks  by 10 blocks, so you can walk everywhere.  It is on a peninsula surrounded by the Sea and at each end there are old forts built by the Spanish to fight off invaders. These were still being used by the Americans during the cold war, but are now just museums.

One of the forts El Morro

El Morro was to the West of the City and therefore was a great place to watch the sunset.  On Saturday evening before going for dinner we walked over to view the sun setting. The large grassy area in front of the fort was full of locals picnicking, enjoying the cool breeze and flying their kites.

There was a festive atmosphere and everyone was enjoying the cooler temperature and the sky was full of kites.

View from the eastern fort

At the east of the city was the other fort this one overlooked the beach that Dave and I discovered.  Though this was the only beach within easy walking distance of the city we had it to ourselves.

Our own deserted beach

In the heat of the day I either had to be in the ocean or in air conditioning, and this beach was preferable to the air conditioned bedroom, though I totally understand the concept of siesta's.

The city itself was very colourful and interesting to walk around.

The streets are narrow and the houses painted bright colours, also there are beautiful flowers on balconies and gardens, and little areas of green.

In the 4 days that we were there we got to know our way around the entire city as it was so small.  It is safe day and night, in fact the bars do not even get going until midnight.  At 4:30 am when we got our taxi to get to the airport there were many groups of young people heading home after a night of partying. Though like in Rincon nobody appeared to be really drunk, passed out or throwing up.

I am glad that during this trip to Puerto Rico we spent a little time away from the beach and got to know more of the island. The old city of San Juan was certainly an interesting place to visit and we certainly felt like locals for those 4 days.