A Visit To Fort San Cristóbal in Old San Juan

Yes­ter­day was a mug­gy day.  The weath­er lady had fore­cast­ed rain in the after­noon so my wife and I decid­ed to stay close to home instead of explor­ing some remote part of the Island.

Old San Juan is just 12 miles away from our home so we decid­ed to go there.  Old San Juan is the old­est city in Puer­to Rico and the sec­ond old­est in the New World.  It has also been a UNESCO World Her­itage Site since 1983.  And even after liv­ing in Puer­to Rico for close to 50 years I always dis­cov­er some­thing inter­est­ing and beau­ti­ful when I go there.

Fort San Cristóbal

Fort San Cristóbal

Yes­ter­day our plan was to vis­it the Span­ish forts in the ear­li­er part of the day, hang out at Paseo de la Prince­sa dur­ing the lat­er part of the after­noon, maybe catch a sun­set by “La Rog­a­ti­va” and then vis­it a friend of mine that makes fine cig­ars on the cor­ner of For­t­aleza and O’Donnell.

Well, we accom­plished half of our plan.  At 2:30pm we left Old San Juan under a heavy driz­zle and an over­cast sky that was no fun for mak­ing pho­tographs or shoot­ing video.

Fort San Cristobal tunnel system

Fort San Cristo­bal tun­nel system

Even so I was able to shoot a short video of Fort San Cristóbal and sev­er­al good photographs.

For many tourists vis­it­ing Puer­to Rico on cruise ships Fort San Cristóbal and Fort San Felipe del Mor­ro is all they’re going to see.  If they’re lucky they’ll have enough time to see a cou­ple of shops in the old city or vis­it the rum dis­tillery across the bay.  So, in case you’re one of those, I thought I’d give you a sneak preview.

Fort San Cristóbal was fin­ished in 1783 and at one point it cov­ered 27 acres of land.  Its pur­pose was to defend the city of San Juan from attacks by land.  It extend­ed from the north­ern Atlantic coast of San Juan Islet to the south­ern coast with San Juan Bay.  Today’s fort is a lit­tle over half of the orig­i­nal, and it is still the largest mil­i­tary for­ti­fi­ca­tion built by the Spaniards in the New World.

Fort San Felipe Del Morro

Fort San Felipe Del Morro

After leav­ing Fort San Cristóbal we went to Fort San Felipe del Mor­ro, a sec­ond mil­i­tary struc­ture, that is not as large, but it’s a lot more impos­ing; espe­cial­ly if you look at it from the water, aboard a small ship like the ones used in the 18th cen­tu­ry.  Dur­ing our brief vis­it to Fort San Felipe del Mor­ro we shot part of a sec­ond video that we’ll be show­ing you next time, but the con­stant driz­zle dis­cour­aged us after a while.

Fort San Felipe Del Morro

Fort San Felipe Del Morro

Fort San Felipe del Mor­ro is a six lev­el mil­i­tary struc­ture, named after King Phillip II, that resem­bles the shape of a bul­l’s head when viewed from above.  Con­struc­tion start­ed in 1539 under the reign of King Charles V of Spain and most of the fort was fin­ished dur­ing the 16th cen­tu­ry.  How­ev­er, the struc­ture was con­stant­ly improved until the even­tu­al occu­pa­tion of the Island by the Unit­ed States in 1898.

At its high­est point Fort San Felipe del Mor­ro ris­es 145 feet above sea lev­el.  How­ev­er, for the vis­i­tor it does­n’t seem as tall because the entrance is through a small con­crete bridge that cross­es a dry moat at ground lev­el.  In Span­ish colo­nial times there would be a draw­bridge at the entrance and sol­diers with cross­bows guard­ing the walls.

Fort San Felipe Del Morro

Fort San Felipe Del Morro

About halfway through our vis­it to El Mor­ro it start­ed to rain.  First it was a heavy rain and then it was a con­stant driz­zle that had no plans of stop­ping.  So about 2:30pm we packed our things and took the trol­ley toward the under­ground parking.

In Old San Juan there are two trol­ley sys­tems.  One belongs to the city and the oth­er to the U.S. Nation­al Park Ser­vice.  You’ll rec­og­nize them eas­i­ly because the ones belong­ing to the city are green and the ones belong­ing to the U.S. Nation­al Park Ser­vice are white.  They’re both quite good.  How­ev­er, the main dif­fer­ence is their route.

Fort San Cristobal, Old San Juan, Puerto Rico

Fort San Cristobal

City trol­leys criss­cross the city through nar­row streets, while the U.S. trol­leys skirt the north side of the city on Norza­garay Street.  This makes the ride on city trol­leys a lit­tle more time con­sum­ing.  How­ev­er, city trol­leys are of the closed vari­ety, which means that you won’t get wet on a rainy day like yesterday.

Fur­ther­more, the main objec­tive of the U.S. Nation­al Park Ser­vice trol­leys is to bring tourists from the docks and Cov­adon­ga Bus Ter­mi­nal to Fort San Cristóbal and Fort San Felipe del Mor­ro.  The fact that they add to the city’s trans­porta­tion sys­tem is pure­ly coincidental.

In any case, we were both wet, the day was get­ting ugly and —since I can always go back when­ev­er I want— we called it quits for the day.

Even so, I was able to take a few nice shots and make a short video for your enjoy­ment.  I hope you like it.

Enjoy Puer­to Rico,

©2013,Orlando Mer­gal, MA
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Bilin­gual Con­tent Cre­ator, Blog­ger, Pod­cast­er,
Author, Pho­tog­ra­ph­er and New Media Expert
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Learn More About Puerto Rico

OLD SAN JUAN Enjoy an adven­ture through cen­turies of history
EL YUNQUE NATIONAL FOREST Explore the only trop­i­cal rain­for­est in the U.S.
LET’S HIT THE BEACH Have fun at one of Puer­to Rico’s world renown beaches.

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