WALKING AROUND OLD SAN JUAN
I love walking around OSJ, even at night. We do feel very safe but you always need to be careful no matter where you are at.
Walking around at night and seeing the sites (while looking for food of course).
The day of the cruise we headed off to eat breakfast and walked around for a while. Right across the street from Mallorca is a little park area ... with pigeons, which Sakari loves.
We headed down to a local skate shop, the hubby is a skater and owns his own skate shop. They never seem to be open and they weren't this time either.
Down the street there is another park-line setting. It was one of the trolley stops too.
They had this gazebo contraption blocked off last time we were here too. Sakari would call this pigeon park the 2nd.
Sakari and these birds! She actually got one to walk on her hands and she screamed with excitement.
They had a beautiful fountain in the park as well.
We could see the fort in the distance.
Then a beautiful church.
Then a beautiful church.
After our cruise we stayed in PR again and headed out to have more fun...at Pigeon Park! (Sakari's favorite because she loves birds).
Now the last time we stayed in OSJ, we stayed at the Old Sheraton right by the port across the street. This time, the Decanter was located pretty much on the other side of OSJ (and when you talk about one side of OSJ versus the other side...we are only talking several blocks because it's not a big area to begin with and easily walked). I wanted a different experience this time around and to be closer to the fort so that we could make it to that area (since we didn't last time).
We headed out the front door and straight down the street and it dead ended into....
Sakari screamed with excitement.
There's a guy there that sells the bird food for $1 a bag and there's enough in it to keep you busy for a very long time.
Daddy thought he was the bird whisperer and would coax some of the birds out of their home. What? All the birds surrounding you on the ground wasn't good enough? Well they weren't having it and stayed up in their homes.
There's a beautiful view from up here.
The actual name of the park is Parque De las Palomas. It's located next to Capilla del Cristo at the end of Cristo Street. This is a decent sized park with several shade trees, which make it nice. The trees are very interesting too and they twist and turn. There's several park benches and some walls to sit on...but beware, you won't be able to sit on the ones around the pigeons and I'm sure you can guess why. There is an area, within the park, that says "no feeding the pigeons beyond this point" and there's benches over there too.
The Capilla del Cristo Chapel was not open at the time we were here. I'm not sure why.
It was time to head out and keep exploring. Bye bye Pigeon Park...until next time.
I told Sakari to go stand over there by the neat cat chairs and I'd take her picture. She went to go sit down and about that time I yell "nooooo it's too hooootttt" and she sat. I actually managed to snap the picture before she sprung up like a Jack in the box yelling "ooouuuccchhhh".
Old San Juan has some of the most beautiful buildings ever. The architecture is stunning and so many details.
This building had some beautiful tile work.
Walking the streets you will find a lot of stray cats (they say there's a lot of dogs too but I have not witnessed it the few times I have been here). There is a crisis on the island with both cats and dogs and people are constantly abandoning their animals because they can not afford to care for them. Did you know there's actually a place called "Dead Dog Beach" where people will drop the dogs off to fend for themselves until they die? One of the other problems is the animals are not getting spayed or neutered. There are organizations and people that try to help feed and care for the stray animals. You will see bowls of food all over the place when walking the streets.
This guy looked like he might have been stealing every cats food in the area. He was HUGE!
We had spent some time walking around the upper area of the wall and decided to head down.
Most of the little shops weren't open yet along this main road right down from the cruise ships.
And we were on the bottom side of the wall now.
I think we walked on the opposite side of the street last time, so I was getting to see things I didn't see before.
I never noticed this before, but they have an outdoor workout facility for the public...although I'm not sure how anyone could stand in the heat long enough to use it let alone work out in it.
Cute little area that looked like they may have bands or shows here with seating and a stage area.
Well, we made it to the statues that we seen last time we were here...only you couldn't get to them. I had to zoom in on it to see it.
There must have been some damage from the hurricane in this area. It leads along the water way and it was an area I wanted to revisit again because there are huge trees and a lot of shade and just so pretty.
At least we were able to find some banos.
You don't know how bad I wanted to just jump in. I tried to be inconspicuous and sat down on the ledge, while gently letting my arm drop down and easing it into the water then bringing it up to splash my face to cool down. I almost can't believe we actually walked this route last time we were here and it was over 100 degrees out that time.
I caught a glimpse of someone, or something, looking at me. It was an all white husky. Sakari just couldn't resist herself and had to go over and say hello. They lady did not speak any English at all, but Sakari was able to show her a picture of her husky and the lady did give her the name of her dog. Husky's are loaded with fur and I can't believe they have them in such a hot place.
The trolley around Old San Juan.
I'm not sure if there was any hurricane damage here or not. I happened to notice this...a trolley stop.
There are just parks all over the place to hang out at.
Lot's of construction in this area.
Just installed...brand new air conditioning. You'll love the 360 view, openness of the floor plan, skylights and the smell of the fresh breeze.
Sakari absolutely LOVES Subway and she begged to go here for lunch. It's not really my idea of experiencing new things when we are away, but I was too hot, tired and hungry to fight her on it and it was very close.
Outside, there was another park. Sakari decided to call this pigeon park #2. Also a man selling popcorn and cotton candy.
Right next door was a local grocery store. We went in to check it out and see if they had pop there. They did and we decided after we explored a little more, we would come back and grab some to take to our hotel.
We did a little shopping along the way to...where ever it was that we were walking to.
Hey, I remember this little park with the fountains the last time we were here.
I decided I wanted to keep going and head down toward the "Presidents" area like we did last time.
Whew, we finally made it to the Presidents. It was a much longer walk this time because we are staying a little further away than last time.
We made it to the end of the Presidents and there wasn't any new additions (Trump).
On our way back, we decided not to back track the way we had came and to go down below and walk that way. We hadn't really seen what was down there last time and there was a lot to see.
I tell ya, Old San Juan is a photographers paradise. There's just so many neat places for pictures.
There's a store that we always seem to go to (both this time and last). It's very small and very loaded with stuff all over the place that you can barely get around inside. But, it seems to be our local "pop stop".
The next day we headed out walking again...
We came across Plaza del v Centenario. It is supposed to be at the highest point in OSJ and it is close to El Morro. It was built in 1992 and it is rumored to have cost $10 million. It was built to honor the 500 year anniversary of Columbus' discovery of the New World.
Juan Ponce de Leon Statue. He was a Spanish explorer and was created in New York in 1882 using bronze collected from English canons that was salvaged when the English attacked San Juan in 1792. Leon sailed with Columbus oh his second voyage to discover the New World and looking for the Fountain of Youth, but ended up discovering Florida in 1513.
At the upper level of the plaza, you'll find a 40 foot totem pole: Totem Telurico. The sculpture was designed and made of clay from across the Americas and is meant to signify the origins of the people of the Americas.
More of the park area and we could see the ocean from here.
We made it out to the street and this is what we seen.
The fort was literally right there! I guess this means we weren't going to ride the trolley there because it was that close.
To check out our tour of the El Moro Fort....click here
However, the graveyard was closer (and on the way to the fort) so we decided to view it first.
You can find the review on it here....
After visiting the fort and the graveyard, we continued on our walking tour journey.
The Dutch Attack of 1625 monument.
We decided to take a different route back (hubby wanted to, once again, try to see if the skate shop was open).
BALLAJA is a sculpture commemorating the rescue of Ballaja by the Puerto Rican people and is located in the Plaza del Cuartel de Ballaja.
This sculpture has 3 bronze figures that are intertwined in a struggle. It depicts the rescue of the district of Ballaja. The figures are on top of a cloak, which represents "the forgotten" and a women represents "the district". The old man is presented as a predator bird of prey who has neglected the district. Between them is a young man who is rescuing the woman and symbolizes the new spirit of a generation of Puerto Ricans struggling to rescue his past and affirm the value of their identity.
This sculpture was installed in 1992 at the old barracks where Spanish troops were quartered.
This is the Eugenio Maria de Hostos sculpture. It commemorates this famous Puerto Rican educator, philosopher, intellectual, lawyer, sociologist and independence advocate. It is located in the plaza near Case Blance (which people call it "skateboard park" due to the teenagers that hang out there skateboarding). <--how ironic since we were headed to the local skate shop around the corner.
I just love all the bright colors of all the places in OSJ.
Here's the outside of the pizza/Italian place we were at before. They also have seating upstairs.
I did a little bit of shopping and found a change purse I just had to have.
I wonder if you can have it your way here?
Some paintings on a building
Circling around and back toward the park.
Sakari wanted to stay for awhile. There is a drug store on the corner here and my head was pounding for some reason. I decided to go in to get some Aleve while she played with the birds and daddy rested on the bench.
Someone brought some type of hard cereal type food or something. They gave her a piece to feed the pigeons.
Too much fun!
We stayed until it was almost dark out. It was time to head back to the hotel. After all, I still had a test to complete.
I also noticed the stained glass windows.
The entrance was right past our hotel and around on the corner on the other side. It was closed. Well darn. We'd have to try again tomorrow.
On our way back around, Mr Attack Kitty was perched up high on this concrete fence. He did not want to play nice.
