San Juan, Puerto Rico

April 16, our last port of call, San Juan, Puerto Rico.  Puerto Rico is a Caribbean island now owned by the United States.  San Juan is the capital, and the city is over 500 years old.  The city was established by Spain when the island was discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492.  Here is Peggy standing in front of a monument dedicated in 1992 to celebrate the 500 year anniversary of his discovery.

We spent the day wandering around the picturesque old city, with its colourful old colonial Spanish buildings.

As you can see, they have renovated the entire old town, and now it is very pleasant for strolling and shopping.  Of course, there is method in their madness, tourism is very important here.

For hundreds of years Spain owned pretty much all of Central America, South America, and the Caribbean.  Puerto Rico was "the gateway" to this whole region.  Because of the ocean currents and the trade winds, the sailing ships of that time that wanted to go to this New World all had to go past Puerto Rico.  So, whoever controlled Puerto Rico, controlled the region.  As a result, Spain built large forts here and for hundreds of years successfully fought off the other countries that tried to take over, including England and the Dutch.  The forts are impressive.

Old San Juan was a walled city.  Here is part of the wall and one of the gates.

We had a nice lunch at a restaurant called "Patio".  I loved the warm plantain chips.  The food here is icy (that is a good thing).  Just look at the choice of condiments on the table.

OK, now on to Miami and then to home sweet home.

P&G.