Our last day in Puerto Rico, we checked out of our AirBNB condo and headed straight to Old San Juan. We thoroughly enjoyed this beautiful city! Our first stop was Castillo San Felipe del Morro ('El Morro'). This fort and it's counterpart, Castillo San Cristobal, both built by the Spanish in the 1500's, are located about a mile apart on the northern coast of the islet of San Juan. We'll have to go see Cristobal next time.
Rewind to a few days earlier, on the bus ride back to the parking area after our bio bay kayaking tour. A tour guide told us about all kinds of fun things to do around Puerto Rico, one of them being flying kites at El Morro, which sounded awesome.
We were the first customers at the kite lady's tent, and Cat picked out two awesome kites for the kids to share. We were flying kites for less than 20 minutes, but it was definitely the highlight of the day, and one of my favorite parts of the trip. It took a lot of convincing to get Jack to stop flying the kite so we could actually to into the fort, but making another family happy by giving them our kite eased his disappointment.
I expected the fort to resemble other Spanish forts we've seen in Florida and Georgia, and in some ways it did, but there was one significant difference: this one was enormous. Construction began in 1539 with the fort starting out as just a promontory with cannon. Two hundred and fifty years (and five levels) later, the fort was complete. Considered a "masterpiece of military engineering" (according to the NPS brochure), the fort withstood many attacks over the years, staying under Spanish control almost continuously until the Spanish-American War, when Puerto Rico became a US territory. By 1898 the fortress was outdated. It became a National Historic Site in 1949 and a World Heritage Site in 1983. (More history
here.)
We had a great time just walking around and exploring some of the nooks and crannies of this cool building, and didn't even get to see the whole thing.
After that we literally just explored the city. We walked through El Convento, a convent that's been converted to a hotel; a beautiful Catholic cathedral called Catedral Basilica Menor de San Juan Bautista; and many Instagram-perfect streets. While the girls and I did a little souvenir shopping, Ben and the boys stumbled upon Parque de las Palomas (Pigeon Park), where they fed - you guessed it - pigeons.
We wandered around for a while, using a pin from Robert to find a restaurant he recommended. We finally gave up, settling instead for the closes pizza place. Turned out, it was Robert's restaurant. And it really was very good. We tried fugazzeta, an Argentinian-style pizza, which was awesome.
Then we hurried to the airport, arriving just in the nick of time, and finding out our flight was delayed. So, we had plenty of time to stock up on exotic chocolate flavors at the gift shop and play some more "Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza," which had been a family Christmas gift.
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Final picture of the trip:
Cat insisting there was no need to carry a bag through the airport.
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Bonus Scenic Pics:
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