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We were lazy and took a cab from the Condado area to Old San Juan, about $2o including tip. The cab driver did not want to venture into Old San Juan and so dropped us off on the edge of it, by the fort San Cristobal. At first we were sad because we wanted to be dropped off at a specific destination (where our book recommended we start a walking tour) but then we saw that Old San Juan is small enough, it was very easy to just drop down to where we wanted to be. Plus, the traffic gets so backed up in the narrow one-way streets, I wouldn't wish that on any taxi driver!
We started our walk on the pedestrian trail set between the ocean and the sea wall. It is a beautiful place to walk, with some shade from trees and nice views across the harbor. At intervals along the tops of the wall are garitas, or sentry boxes. At one point you can walk up stairs and even slip into the garitas to look out of the narrow slits.
We walked to Fort San Felipe Del Morro, which is quite impressive. It is positioned on the edge of the cliffs and has beautiful views of the ocean and even looking back at the city. The long, grassy approach seemed to be popular with families attempting to fly kites and people walking dogs. El Morro was built back in the 1500's and seems to be kept in pretty good shape. We appreciated the very informative pamphlet we received upon entering - we followed its suggested walk through the fort and read the historical info as we went, so we would actually understand what part of the fort we were seeing, and the significance of it!
We shopped our way through Old San Juan a bit - fun to do, though the narrow streets can get quite crowded. Still, at least there are sidewalks, and we appreciated the brightly colored buildings and cobbled streets. We also visited Fort San Cristobal. It was interesting to walk through its tunnel system, and here you can get even better views of the city, but I didn't find it to be as user-friendly. Their visitor info pamphlet just couldn't compare to El Morro's. Either that or I was getting too tired to read maps right, because I kept getting confused about where I was.
previous travel blog entry
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