10 Facts About Old San Juan and then some

San Juan Bay. Click on image to see it larger.

Old San Juan is one of those won­der­ful places that peo­ple pay a small for­tune to vis­it and I have it for free. Why? Because it’s 12 ½ miles away from my home. And it’s beau­ti­ful. That’s God’s hon­est truth.

When my chil­dren were kids (they’re all now in their 30’s) I took them so many times to Old San Juan that they could draw a map of the city. Now I’m doing it once again with my grand­chil­dren. Every time they want to go for a ride they ask me to take them to “los castil­los”, mean­ing the Span­ish forts that defend­ed the old city dur­ing the Island’s first colo­nial period.

Old San Juan is a mag­i­cal place, where your imag­i­na­tion takes you to anoth­er era. It’s like step­ping back in time with­out a time machine. But if you’re think­ing about vis­it­ing now you’d prob­a­bly be bet­ter off stay­ing home. Covid-19 has seen to that. It’s not that the city is closed to vis­i­tors. It’s just that trav­el­ing these days is a risky propo­si­tion alto­geth­er. Besides, many attrac­tions are closed, as well as bars and restaurants.

So I thought I would help you do the next best thing: “learn all you can about Old San Juan so you’ll be well pre­pared to vis­it us when things return to normal”.

Old San Juan Is Old

Old San Juan is the third old­est city in the West­ern Hemi­sphere. That lit­tle oth­er city on the east coast of Flori­da does­n’t even come close. San Juan was found­ed back in 1521 by Juan Ponce de León. Yeah, that was the same dude that was killed in Flori­da while search­ing for the foun­tain of youth. He was also Puer­to Rico’s first governor.

San Juan Coat Of Arms, click on image to see it larger.

San­to Domin­go de Guzmán, the capi­tol of the neigh­bor­ing Domini­can Repub­lic is the old­est city in the West­ern Hemi­sphere. It was found­ed back in 1496 by Nicolás de Ovan­do, just 4 years after their island was dis­cov­ered by Christo­pher Colum­bus in 1492.

The sec­ond old­est is Havana, found­ed in 1519 by the Span­ish con­quis­ta­dor Diego Velázquez de Cuél­lar. How­ev­er, due to polit­i­cal con­sid­er­a­tions, Havana isn’t as avail­able for U.S. cit­i­zens as the rest of the Caribbean.

The geo­graph­ic cen­ter of Old San Juan sits approx­i­mate­ly at GPS coor­di­nates 18.466517, ‑66.117051, at the cor­ner of Calle Sol and Calle San Jose. In case you’re won­der­ing, the word “calle” means “street” and in nor­mal Span­ish syn­tax it pre­cedes the actu­al name of the street. This is total­ly con­trary to Eng­lish syn­tax. Now back to the story…

Old San Juan Is Small

Accord­ing to Wikipedia (that bea­con of human knowl­edge), the city of Old San Juan has about 250 acres of mil­i­tary instal­la­tions and 62 acres for pri­vate and pub­lic use. So basi­cal­ly it was a war machine dur­ing the Span­ish colo­nial era.

And here’s a piece of his­tor­i­cal triv­ia for you. Orig­i­nal­ly Old San Juan was chris­tened Puer­to Rico in remem­brance of a sim­i­lar port in the Canary Islands. Lat­er on, in 1521, the city was renamed “San Juan Bautista de Puer­to Rico” and the island as a whole was named Puer­to Rico.

The Island was a stopover point for ships trav­el­ing between Spain and the New World, hence it was one of the most heav­i­ly for­ti­fied cities under Span­ish rule. Lucky for us, all those post medieval struc­tures have become tourist attrac­tions that make vis­it­ing Puer­to Rico a unique experience.

There are approx­i­mate­ly 50 streets in the Old City, which starts where the Gov­ern­ment Recep­tion Cen­ter sits today and extends to Fort San Felipe del Mor­ro to the west. North to south the orig­i­nal city extends from Calle Norza­gar­ray to Recin­to Sur. Every­thing to the south of Recin­to Sur is landfill.

Is Old San Juan A Walled City?

San Juan City Wall, click on image to see it larger.

Well, almost. Con­struc­tion of the Old San Juan city wall start­ed in 1634 and it was fin­ished by 1783. This alone tells you the impor­tance that the city of San Juan had for the Span­ish empire. How­ev­er, by the end of the 19th cen­tu­ry the city folks were being cramped in by their own walls and the Span­ish gov­ern­ment autho­rized the demo­li­tion of the south east quad­rant of the walls in 1897.

The orig­i­nal wall encir­cled the City and had only five access point or “puer­tas”. These were: “Puer­ta de San Juan” which grant­ed access to the south­west­ern part of the city and the cathe­dral, “Puer­ta de San José” and “Puer­ta de San­ta Rosa” which led to the ceme­tery, “Puer­ta de San Jus­to” or “Puer­ta de España” which con­nect­ed the south­ern part of the city to com­mer­cial mar­itime traf­fic and “Puer­ta de San Jus­to”, also called “La Puer­ta de Tier­ra” because it con­nect­ed the city to the land on the west side.

Only 3 of these “puer­tas” exist today. “Puer­ta de San Jus­to” and “Puer­ta de San­ti­a­go” were demol­ished in 1897 along with a seg­ment of the city wall and and the south­ern quad­rant of Fort San Cristóbal.

And here’s a piece of triv­ia for you. Pri­or to 1897 Fort San Cristóbal was the largest mil­i­tary struc­ture built by the Spaniards in the New World. And even with the piece that it’s miss­ing, Fort San Cristóbal is still the largest. There’s a an archi­tec­tur­al mod­el at the fort that will give you a clear­er under­stand­ing of how immense this struc­ture real­ly was. But more on this later.

Even with the miss­ing por­tion, the Old San Juan city wall is prob­a­bly the most com­plete in the New World. Can you imag­ine what it would be like if they hadn’t demol­ished the miss­ing struc­tures? Old San Juan would be the only walled city in the New World. What kind of tourist attrac­tion would that be?

Is It Safe To Walk Around In Old San Juan?

Yes it is. About as safe as any oth­er tourist attrac­tion. There is munic­i­pal police and state police that looks after the safe­ty of locals and vis­i­tors. But that doesn’t mean that you are exempt from trou­ble altogether.

Like any oth­er pop­u­lous city you have to pro­tect your belong­ings and be mind­ful of your sur­round­ings. That means not leav­ing valu­ables in your car, not walk­ing alone in dark areas and keep­ing your prized pos­ses­sions in your hotel safe.

The one place you don’t want to walk is on the city walls. In most places the walls can be as high as 42 feet. A fall from such a height will sure­ly ruin your vaca­tion and could even cost you your life.

Sur­pris­ing­ly, peo­ple are con­stant­ly told not to do this and they still do. I guess I’ll nev­er ful­ly under­stand human nature.

Is Old San Juan and San Juan the same thing?

No it’s not. Old San Juan com­pris­es the area that was orig­i­nal­ly encir­cled by the City Wall. That rep­re­sents the west­ern tip of “la Isle­ta de San Juan” (San Juan Islet). The east­ern por­tion of San Juan Islet is known as “Puer­ta De Tier­ra”, which —as you will recall— was the nick­name giv­en to the “Puer­ta de San­ti­a­go”, demol­ished in 1897.

The munic­i­pal­i­ty of San Juan cov­ers an area of 199.4 km², which is rough­ly 77 square miles. It’s also the capi­tol city of Puer­to Rico and the most dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed area on the Island.

Is Real Estate Expensive In Old San Juan?

Yes it is. It’s a mat­ter of sup­ply and demand. The city isn’t get­ting any larg­er so liv­ing in the sec­ond old­est city in the New World comes at a cost.

And that cost goes well beyond the mon­e­tary aspect. Most build­ings in Old San Juan don’t have ele­va­tors. So what, you might think. It’s only a three sto­ry build­ing! Right? Yeah, but each floor can be 18 feet high. So three floors can feel more like six. So believe me, car­ry­ing your gro­ceries up 60 feet of stairs grows old real­ly quick.

Anoth­er aspect that annoys many res­i­dents of Old San Juan is the hus­tle and bus­tle. Dur­ing the week­ends the city comes alive. Puer­to Rican youth adores Old San Juan. It’s the place to go bar hop­ping, vis­it great restau­rants or sim­ply hang out with your sig­nif­i­cant oth­er and do some peo­ple watch­ing. So if you’re imag­in­ing it like a tran­quile place to have peace and qui­et, you’re dead wrong. There’s a price to pay for liv­ing in the sec­ond old­est city in the New World.

And final­ly, there’s the traf­fic. Some­how locals have sur­mised that there’s some­thing smart about sit­ting in a traf­fic jam for an hour or so while you crawl through Old San Juan. I don’t get it!!!

The city should have been a pedes­tri­an city decades ago. But every time the sub­ject comes up you get con­trar­i­an opin­ions and no com­mon ground. Mean­while, the city is slow­ly crum­bling under vehic­u­lar traf­fic, tox­ic fumes and grime. The beau­ti­ful archi­tec­ture and ambiance of this his­tor­i­cal mar­vel is sad­ly obscured by thou­sands of motor vehi­cles cov­er­ing every inch of avail­able curbs.

What Is The Best Way To See Old San Juan?

On foot. I per­son­al­ly wrote a book for the Ama­zon Kin­dle titled “The Old San Juan Walk­ing Tour” that cov­ers every may­or attrac­tion in the Old City. It starts at Plaza Dárse­na next to where the old “Puer­ta De San Jus­to” used to stand and takes you on a beau­ti­ful walk end­ing at the Gov­ern­ment Recep­tion Cen­ter next to Fort San Cristóbal and Plaza Colón.

The aver­age tem­per­a­ture in Old San Juan is between 72°F and 89°F (22°-31°C), but it can reach peaks of 92°F or above dur­ing the months of July and August. The real offend­er is humid­i­ty. The annu­al aver­age is 79% and it can go even high­er between August and Decem­ber. Besides, cli­mate change has made con­di­tions more unpre­dictable, so your best bet is to err on the side of caution.

So, what does all this mean? It means light cloth­ing mate­ri­als, light col­ors, com­fort­able walk­ing shoes, plen­ty of water, sun­glass­es, sun­block and a wide brim hat. And stay out of the mid day sun.

With all this said, if you real­ly want to dis­cov­er Old San Juan the best way to do it is on foot. There are his­toric land­marks at every turn. His­tor­i­cal build­ings are gen­er­al­ly iden­ti­fied with bronze plates, albeit most are in Span­ish. There are also dozens of muse­ums, church­es, restau­rants and bars that you’ll sure­ly miss from a motor vehicle.

Besides, if the heat becomes unbear­able, you can always stop for a “piragua” (snow cone) or a “piña cola­da”, which —by the way— was actu­al­ly invent­ed in Puer­to Rico.

Your first stop… The Forts

Fort San Felip del Mor­ro, click on image to see it larger.

Here’s a sad sta­tis­tic for you: most tourists spend less that 8 hours in Puer­to Rico. Sad, but true. And who are those? They are the tourists who come on cruise ships. They dis­em­bark at San Juan peer in the morn­ing and are usu­al­ly gone by sunset.

That leaves them enough time to vis­it both the forts and maybe, just maybe, go for a short walk in the Old City. That’s sad. Old San Juan has so much to offer and most vis­i­tors nev­er expe­ri­ence it.

You can vis­it the forts in any order. In my book, “The Old San Juan Walk­ing Tour” we vis­it Fort San Felipe del Mor­ro” first and “Fort San Cristóbal” last.

Fort San Felipe Del Mor­ro is the small­est of the two. It is also the old­est. It’s a six lev­el fort that was in charge of pro­tect­ing the entrance to San Juan Bay. When you arrive on a ship it seems to be the largest because of its mul­ti­level design, but it’s actu­al­ly the small­est of the two.

Fort San Felipe del Mor­ro worked in tan­dem with a small­er fort across the bay called “San Juan de la Cruz”, also known by the locals as “El Cañue­lo” that pro­tect­ed the bay from the oth­er side. Any ship attempt­ing to enter the bay would be caught in a mer­ci­less crossfire.

Reen­act­ment at Fort San Felip del Mor­ro, click on image to see it larger.

And why is “El Cañue­lo” so small, you might ask? Well, the star­board side of the bay going in is rid­den with reefs that took care of any ship get­ting too close to the shore, so the only side that actu­al­ly need­ed pro­tect­ing was the port side.

On the west­ern end of the city is Fort San Cristóbal, an enor­mous mul­ti­level cas­tle that cov­ered the entire west­ern quad­rant from the ocean to the bay. Both forts were equipped with all the weapon­ry of the day, but what real­ly made them spe­cial was the fact that they were weapons in them­selves. Their extreme­ly large glacis, dry moats, col­lapsi­ble tun­nels and mul­ti­level designs made them prac­ti­cal­ly unbreachable.

Things at Fort San Cristóbal went even fur­ther. The fort was the last stage in a mul­ti-defense sys­tem that start­ed at the far west coast of San Juan Islet. So any attempt to attack Fort San Cristo­bal would’ve met all the exte­ri­or defens­es first.

Fort San Cristóbal, clcik on image to see it larger.

Many peo­ple call Fort San Cristo­bal and Fort San Felipe del Mor­ro cas­tles, but they are actu­al­ly not. Cas­tles were build­ings made for aris­to­crats and nobles to live in. The forts in Old San Juan were mil­i­tary machines designed from the ground up to repel any pos­si­ble attacks to the city.

So, if Fort San Felipe del Mor­ro guard­ed the west­ern part of the Old City and Fort San Cristóbal guard­ed the east, why are there no forts on the north­ern and south­ern coasts of Old San Juan? The answer is sim­ple, although it isn’t obvi­ous. The north­ern coast of Old San Juan is rid­den with reefs. Any attempt to dis­em­bark there would have led to immi­nent dis­as­ter. Land­ing on the south­ern coast would have been even more dif­fi­cult because it would’ve required breach­ing the secu­ri­ty of one of the two forts. And that was no easy task.

Are There Any Historical Churches In Old San Juan?

San Juan Basil­i­ca inte­ri­or, click on image to see it larger

Yes there are, but don’t expect the splen­dor, art and rich­es of Euro­pean church­es. Church­es in the Old City are rich in archi­tec­ture and his­tor­i­cal impor­tance. Any gold that might have been found in Puer­to Rico end­ed up in Spain.

How­ev­er, the San Juan Basil­i­ca, ded­i­cat­ed to San Juan The Bap­tist, is a beau­ti­ful church. Con­struc­tion start­ed in 1529 but the orig­i­nal struc­ture was destroyed by a hur­ri­cane. The struc­ture that you see today, with its beau­ti­ful goth­ic facade, was start­ed in 1540.

The San Juan Basil­i­ca is also the sec­ond old­est church in the west­ern hemi­sphere and seat of the arch­dio­cese of San Juan. Juan Ponce de León, Puer­to Rico’s first colo­nial gov­er­nor is buried there.

There are oth­er beau­ti­ful church­es around the city includ­ing San José Church, one of the ear­li­est sur­viv­ing exam­ples of 16th-cen­tu­ry Span­ish Goth­ic archi­tec­ture in the West­ern hemi­sphere. The altar on this church was donat­ed by Juan Ponce De León and the family’s coat of arms is still there. José Campeche, one of the Islands most renown painters, is buried in this church.

Oth­er exam­ples include San Fran­cis­co Par­rish (Par­ro­quia de San Fran­cis­co), on San Fran­cis­co Street and San­ta Ana Church (Igle­sia San­ta Ana), on Tetuán Street.

Is Food Any Good In Old San Juan?

Mofon­go, click on image to see it larger.

You bet!!! Puer­to Rico has one of the most var­ied and deli­cious cuisines in the World. When the Span­ish dis­cov­ered the Island back in 1493 they had just expelled the moors from south­ern Spain after 8 cen­turies of dom­i­na­tion. So they brought a mix­ture of Span­ish, Jew­ish and Moor­ish cuisines that mixed with African, Taíno, Cuban, Domini­can, Amer­i­can and even Chi­nese influ­ences to pro­duce one of the best and unique cuisines any­where on the globe.

And while Old San Juan isn’t home to every great restau­rant on the Island, it cer­tain­ly has a wide selec­tion of every type of food Puer­to Rico has to offer. Many of them are lined along Com­er­cio Street but there are dozens hid­den along the sec­ondary streets as well.

If you’ve done any kind of research so far you’ll prob­a­bly know about “mofon­go”. But in case you don’t, it’s a mix­ture of fried and mashed plan­tain, gar­lic and crushed pork rind filled with your choice of shrimp, lob­ster, conch, octo­pus, chick­en, pork, steak and much more. You can have it with a cold beer or a glass of wine. But if you real­ly want to take in the entire Puer­to Rican expe­ri­ence try a “piña cola­da”, a mix­ture of Puer­to Rican rum, coconut cream, pineap­ple juice and a beau­ti­ful red cher­ry on the top. It’s refresh­ing and tasty.

And there’s more… much more

There are many more things to do in Puer­to Rico out­side Old San Juan. The Island has some of the most beau­ti­ful beach­es in the world. The only trop­i­cal rain for­est in the Unit­ed States is also in Puer­to Rico, about 30 miles east of the San Juan Metroplex.

If you are the adven­tur­ous type you can try “The Mon­ster” at Toro Verde, a 2.5Km zipline that’s the largest in the Amer­i­c­as. Per­son­al­ly, I wouldn’t be caught dead on it because I’m ter­ri­fied by heights. But if reach­ing speeds of up to 52.8km/h, real­ly high up in the air, is your thing, then Puer­to Rico has it.

The Island also has three (yes, that’s right, 3) bio­lu­mi­nes­cent bays in the towns of Guáni­ca and Fajar­do, and on the small­er island of Vieques.

Final­ly, Puer­to Rico has a large col­lec­tion of paradores (small fam­i­ly-owned hotels) pep­pered through­out the Island. If you’re look­ing for fun under the sun, agro-tourism or sim­ply that peace and quite that you won’t find in the San Juan Metro­plex the one of the paradores could be right for you.

The impor­tant thing is to plan ahead. Why ahead? Because many peo­ple sim­ply are afraid to trav­el until they get vac­ci­nat­ed. And who can blame them? I wouldn’t trav­el either. After all, I’m 66 and catch­ing Covid-19 would prob­a­bly send me straight to heav­en (did you notice how I didn’t even con­sid­er the oth­er direction?).

So now’s the time to plan. Take some time to explore Puer­to Rico By GPS. Watch our videos on the right hand col­umn. Watch oth­er peo­ple’s videos too (of course, after you watch ours) and become an expert in all things Puer­to Rico. That way you’ll hit the ground run­ning when you get here.

I hope to see you soon,

©2021,Orlando Mer­gal, MA
____________________

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