Puerto Rico: Old San Juan: Sentry Boxes and Sangria

Today would be our last day on vacation and we were dreading the return back to reality. We ate breakfast in the garden, packed our bags and took some time to explore the Gallery Inn in the daylight. Wow! There are some gorgeous views from the deck upstairs. . and yes it is very eclectic. We were enjoying looking at all the tropical birds when Tony thought it would be a good idea to hold one of them. Like most episodes of “when animals attack” it all started with a little peck. Next thing you know Tony’s getting attacked by the bird named Campeche. This bird is known as “The Social Director” of the Gallery Inn, but now it’s known as the White Devil!

It’s hard to feel like you’re not in some part of a history lesson walking around this 465 year old neighborhood complete with stone walls 40 feet high and 45 feet thick at the base! We walked all around and couldn’t help but notice that the streets were paved with pretty blue cobblestones, these are actually made of adoquine, and brought over on Spanish ships years ago.

Old San Juan was a Spanish military stronghold, and we really enjoyed exploring the Castillo San Felipe del Morro and San Cristobal. Ruby was obsessed with the iconic sentry boxes (you’ll see there are many pictures of them). We walked all around town, stopped for some cinnamon-spiced sangria and exploring the narrow streets with colorful buildings.

Squeezing every little bit out of our vacation we had just enough time for some delicious Italian food at Cucina Del Ivo again. We waited until sunset before heading to the airport. We thought we had timed this drive just perfect but signs in Puerto Rico are not the easiest to follow! One will say airport to the left then as you drive past you see the airport on the right! We must have driven all over San Juan looking for the exit to the airport. I think this is how they trap tourists for another day! Well, needless to say we caught our flight back to New York and even thought the flight is only a few hours we feel the onset of some serious international style jetlag coming on!