The Condado Area

Beach in San Juan
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Our first day in San Juan, Puerto Rico, we were tired and wanted to take it easy.  We decided to just walk around the Condado area, close to our hotel, The Best Western Hotel Pierre.  We tried to hit the beach as soon as there was a gap in the buildings lining the beach area - not a good idea.  It was dirty and we were a little disappointed, thinking that later on we would have nowhere to go to get our beach experience!  But we learned that we just had to keep walking west, further down to reach the better area behind the nicer hotels.  The area behind the Marriott and other hotels nearby offers much better beach - but when we eventually went, it was very windy!  We were cheap and didn't rent a beach chair and so after an hour our beach blankets were partially buried by sand and small bits of trash that were blown down the beach.

We also went to El Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, the art museum.  It was a very nice building and they had a large selection of contemporary art.  They also have a nice little garden around the back with a small trail meandering through and a pond.