Old San Juan Is For Walking

I’ll nev­er under­stand how there are peo­ple who jump in their cars and waste hours dri­ving around Old San Juan.  That’s the idiot’s way to see the Old City!  But there does­n’t seem to be a short­age of those.  Just vis­it Old San Juan any Sun­day after­noon and you’ll see the long line of cars going from Fort San Cristo­bal to Fort San Felipe del Mor­ro on Norza­garay Street.

Old San Juan was built by peo­ple who had no cars.  Hence, the city streets are nar­row, there’s hard­ly any park­ing space and the Caribbean sun is so blis­ter­ing hot that even the best air con­di­tion­ers can hard­ly keep up.

The Old San Juan Walk­ing Tour. Click on image to see it larger.

Besides, the dev­il is in the details.  You need to be stand­ing on your own two feet to read the plac­ards on his­tor­i­cal land­marks, vis­it inter­est­ing shops, talk to the peo­ple, vis­it the many muse­ums and parks, and stop for a refresh­ment (adult or oth­er­wise) at one of the city’s many bars and cafe­te­rias.  You just can’t do any of that while sit­ting in a car.

Then there’s the ele­ment of time.  Many tourists arrive on cruise ships and hard­ly have 8 hours to enjoy the city.  That’s bare­ly enough to explore the Span­ish forts, grab a quick lunch or sou­venir and rush back to your ship.

Oth­ers arrive by plane and have few­er time con­straints.  But if they don’t know what to look for they’re prone to wan­der through the Old City with­out real­ly get­ting to know it.

Guía del Cam­i­nante del Viejo San Juan. Click on image to see it larger.

Of course, there are trained guides that you can pay to show you around, but they’re expen­sive and often you’ll be com­pet­ing for atten­tion with fel­low tourists in your par­ty.  If you like feel­ing like you’re part of a herd, by all means go for it!.

That’s brings us to “The Old San Juan Walk­ing Tour”.  “The Old San Juan Walk­ing Tour” is an illus­trat­ed e‑book for your Ama­zon Kin­dle that takes you on a step-by-step imag­i­nary tour of Puer­to Rico’s most beau­ti­ful city.  And it leaves noth­ing out.  You’ll explore the Span­ish forts, the stat­ues, the plazas and every oth­er pop­u­lar land­mark in a vir­tu­al walk (com­plete with 66 stun­ning pho­tos) that starts right next to Pier #1 and returns you to the same place 8 hours lat­er; just in time to catch your ship!

And the best thing is that you can read “The Old San Juan Walk­ing Tour” in the com­fort of your own home, deter­mine exact­ly what you’d pre­fer to see and hit the ground run­ning when you arrive!  All for less than the price of a sandwich.

Oh, and did I for­get to tell you that it’s also avail­able in Span­ish?  That’s right!!!  It’s called “Guía Del Cam­i­nante Del Viejo San Juan” and it’s just as use­ful if “español” hap­pens to be your native tongue.

So if you’re com­ing to Old San Juan, and you real­ly want to get to know this city in a very short amount of time, do your­self a favor.  Leave the car at any of the city’s many park­ing garages, jump into your sneak­ers and hit the cob­ble­stones on foot.  Then you’ll real­ly be able to say “I vis­it­ed Old San Juan”.

©2015,Orlando Mer­gal, MA
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Bilin­gual Con­tent Cre­ator, Blog­ger, Pod­cast­er,
Author, Pho­tog­ra­ph­er and New Media Expert
Tel. 787–750-0000, Mobile 787–306-1590