San Juan, The Capital

San Juan is the capital and most populous city in Puerto Rico. It is located on the northern side of the island overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. It was bustling with activity during our visit. Although we were only there for one day, we did get a taste of the history, culture, culinary delights, and old world charm of San Jose.

We began our day with a stop at West Marine to stock up on boat parts. We thought we’d better do that in the morning before we spent the day sightseeing.

From West Marine, we drove to Piñones, a lively coastal town with amazing ocean scenery, beaches, and food. This is the place to sample the best traditional Puerto Rican street food. Snack shacks and small restaurants line the streets, while the smells waft through town.

Piñones is an area where locals practice what is called “chinchorreo,” sampling delicious street food while hopping from food stand to food stand and going back and forth to the beach. There was certainly not a lack of choices for good eats, but we opted to try just one restaurant on this outing, Carmín Restaurant. We tried bacalaitos (cod fritters), empanadillas (similar to empanadas), nuggets de filete de pescado (grouper fish bites with Puerto Rico’s famous pink sauce), and ponchos de pollo (chicken skewers). There are many more traditional Puerto Rican foods we still need to try, like mofongo, tembleque, arroz con gandules, and pastelón. We’ll plan another sampling outing on a different day.

We left Piñones after enjoying an early lunch and took a picturesque drive along the ocean highway through the city of Carolina, on our way to San Juan. We parked the car and let Gracie run in a park overlooking the ocean, while Kory and I walked off some of our fried Puerto Rican food. The beaches here were beautiful and it was a great place to watch the waves crashing against the rocks below and enjoy the scenery.

After a nice walk and scenic overlook, we made our way to Old San Juan to tour some of the historic sights. I was surprised to see so many clean, modern, and cosmopolitan areas in San Juan. There are certainly poor, industrial, and unsafe neighborhoods, but there is also a healthy, vibrant, and active community in some of the nicer areas. It’s a little too big of a city for my liking, but it was great to get a broad overview of the life and culture, and to experience some of it’s history.

We made it to Old San Juan just after the lunch hour and had a whole afternoon to explore. Old San Juan is actually a neighborhood within the city of San Juan. This historic area exudes old-world charm with cobblestone streets, colorful buildings, fortresses, lively plazas, gardens, sidewalk cafés, window flower boxes, and more.

First built by the Spanish in the early 16th Century, San Juan still embodies decades of history and culture. It is home to the San Juan National Historic site which includes the fortresses of San Felipe del Morro and Castillo San Cristóbal with their ancient city walls.

Castillo San Cristóal was built from 1634 through 1765. It stood guard at the eastern gate of Old San Juan for centuries. The imposing fortress was built to guard the city from enemies who approached by land, serving as a counterpart to Castillo San Felipe del Morro (El Morro) farther west. The citadel once spanned over 27 acres and was the largest one made by the Spaniards in the New World. We didn’t get a chance to tour El Morro on this outing, but seeing Castillo San Cristóbal itself was quite impressive with outstanding views. Here are some photos of Castillo San Cristóbal. One could get lost among the fortress walls.

There is so much more to see and to do in Old San Juan. We just touched the surface; but it was a great day of explorations nonetheless. Of interest, The Bautista Cathedral houses the tomb of Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León. By late afternoon, it was time to move on. We had over an hour long drive back to the boat in Salinas, and I wanted to stop at Plaza de las Americas for a quick look. This mall is the largest in the Caribbean, and the second largest in Latin America. I was able to find a couple of sundresses at Marshall’s, so it was a successful stop.

In was a great day in San Jose! The next couple of days in Salinas were spent washing the boat, cooking, cleaning, and making plans for future stops to Viequez and Culebra, two of Puerto Rico’s off-islands. More about those places to come!