Old San Juan

Hola!  After leaving you yesterday, we caught a taxi into Old San Juan, about 15 mins away.  The traffic going into Old San Juan was very heavy as there were roadworks going on so the driver could not take us all the way to Fort El Morro which was our ultimate destination.  We were dropped at a city square, about 20 mins walk from the Fort.  The city is very colonial and quaint, with some fabulous architecture. 

Lovely blue cobblestones line the streets which were cast from residues of iron furnaces in Spain and brought over as ships' ballast.

The weather was fabulous and there were lots of school groups flying kites in the grassed area outside of the fort.

We stopped and took lots of photos along the way, and unfortunately just outside the fort Richard dropped the camera.  I must admit, I looked towards the heavens and thanked my lucky stars it was not me that dropped it!  Since then he has been heard to mumble "idiot" along with "golly idiot" at times....  We are off to the Sony shop today to see if it can be fixed before we get on the ship on Monday.  Otherwise we'll buy a new one and sort it out when we get home.
We also found a neat little spice shop - I'm going to do a Foodie blog so will tell you about it in that.

Six miles of walls enclose Old San Juan, some 50 feet high and 20 feet thick, with a ring of sentry boxes.  The guide book says, "This formidable look was a necessity during the turbulent days when there was a continual threat of invasion; both Francis Drake and Jack Hawkins led attacks on the city in the 16th century.  Parts of the city date from its foundation in 1520 but most of the city was restored to its current 18th century style."  There are two forts within Old San Juan - El Morro and San Cristobal.  We only went to El Morro as we figured that if you've seen one fort you've seen them all.  El Morro was huge - 6 levels in total - I don't know how long it took to build but I suspect quite some time in those days considering how thick the walls were.

We then wandered back to find a place for lunch, and took up a recommendation to go to Raice's.  Again, check out the Foodie blog to see what we had.  We also found a great souvenir shop where we bought sun hats for ourselves, along with a few family presents.  Poor Richard kept on paying for each thing (as he's the money man), then I'd find something else which he'd pay for, then I'd find something else.  I think we did 6 transactions in total - although paying cash fortunately.

Taxi back to the hotel, and down to the pool for a spa.  Very nice Teppanyaki dinner at the Japanese restaurant in the hotel.  Sat with a table of Spanish-speaking people, so no conversation there.  We've decided that speaking Spanish would be a definite advantage for anyone wanting to live in the US, or work on cruise ships.  There were heaps of Spanish-speaking people on the last cruise, so we're thinking there will be heaps more on this one.

Up later this morning at 7am, and have been for a walk on the beach, and here we are at the pool again.  This is becoming a routine!  Only two days to go before we board the ship - getting excited again!  Adios for now!