San Juan Viejo and Paella (July 15, 2014)

Today we headed back to Old San Juan for part two and three of Andra's walking tour. 

Walking the steep streets of San Juan Viejo

There are many statues throughout the city

Another steep hill, but this time a walking street only

This time we saw more highlights of the city and ended up at the other Castle. Very cool spot. San Juan Viejo is such a beautiful mix of old and new.   The following pictures were all taken inside the second castle (fort).  

Entering the underground prison

Views from the castle

This picture really shows the mix of old and new found in San Juan Viejo

There are a lot of stores if shopping and souvenirs are your thing, and lots of restaurants and cafes. There’s a beautiful little park in the middle of Old San Juna with a coffee stand, where you can just sit and relax, or you can walk for miles, just taking in the sights. 

Having drinks in the park.  I did great ordering in Spanish, until I panicked and switched to English. 

Fountain in the city

The prison cells at the old palace

A beautiful end to our walking tour

If you get hot, just pop into one of the little bars and have a drink. Everyone is so friendly and warm! 

 It was much hotter today so we headed back to the hotel to cool off, then on to the beach for beers and sand. Again amazed at how soft and fine the sand is. We went to dinner for paella at Antonio's. Very fancy place as waiters were in black ties. We had an amazing Caprese salad and then enough Paella for 10 people. We order for two but they brought for three. Darn, as wasted lots of it. 

Yummy Paella!

It was a really good dinner, but just too much food. We headed back to hotel for packing.  We're really going to miss Puerto Rico.  What an amazing island!  Lots to do and lots to see!

San Juan, Puerto Rico (July 9th, 2014)

Our youngest daughter had some time off from work in July, so we decided to take a quick trip to Puerto Rico with her. We left the house at 3:40 am for a 6:45 flight on Airtran, which was a bit strange as I had booked via Southwest.com.  Our flight left on time, which was nice. We had a scheduled 45 minute layover in Atlanta. Flight arrived 5+ minutes early. Had to go from terminal C to D. Very easy and quick. Carried on 3 of 4 bags as I was worried they wouldn't make the transfer to Southwest. Flight coming out of Atlanta was 45 minutes late leaving but arrived in Puerto Rico only 30 minutes late. 3 hours and 50 minutes gate to gate from Atlanta. 

San Juan, Puerto Rico was a small airport easy to navigate. Car rental was with Thrifty which had shuttle bus to facility. We waited about 15 minutes for a shuttle to come. Arrived at Thrifty and went through the rental process. Our insurance with Statefarm did not cover rentals in Puerto Rico, so we had to get their insurance. We talked to another women at Thrifty who was insured with Allstate, and she was covered in Puerto Rico. We updated to max coverage. We were glad to have the full coverage as some roads were a bit rough. After we got our rental contract we went outside to get our car. They picked a car for me and then went to wash and detailed it. Very interesting process; It took about 15 minutes to actually get our car after going outside. Once it was clean, we went over the car for damage with a Thrifty Rep. Lots of little dings and chips on car that only had 15k miles.

We brought our own GPS from home, so that we wouldn’t have to rent one. It took us straight to the Holiday Inn Express in Condado. We paid $128 per night for five nights and $178 for each Friday and Saturday. Also had parking next to hotel for $15 per night which was great. The parking was very tight, but we always had a spot. There was a gate with an electronic opener so very easy in and out. Parking is very difficult everywhere in San Juan. Most lots required valet services.

When we arrived at the hotel, our Verizon cell phones didn't work. We turned on voice and data roaming and then it worked as it would stateside. I called Verizon and they said ‘yes this needed to be done’ which was a bit disappointing as had gone by store and called international phone number and both said my phone was set correctly before I left. AT&T cell phones all work fine without anything additional needing to be done.

We took a walk on the beach in the evening; very nice out; high humidity but very comfortable. The sand was extremely soft and the beach was very clean. It appears that they clean it each night. Walked to a local restaurant that serves Puerto Rican food for dinner. Steve had flank steak, ordered medium rare and it came very rare. Heard others patrons with the same issue. Our daughter had ribs and Andra had shredded pork. We all had Mofongo which is a local dish, made from plantains or root vegetables and cooked many different ways. It was a very heavy dinner with lots of butter and fried stuff.  Overall we really enjoyed the meal.

Wonderful first dinner in Puerto Rico.  Definitely heavier food than were used to.