San Juan is one of my favourite ports, we come here every second week. But one week I'm port manning and can't get off the ship, the other week we have our crew boat drill and don't get off until late. I never get enough time in San Juan. Oh the problems of ship life!
After the last boat drill Manny, David and I went to visit Castillo San Cristobal. It's a Spanish fort that was built over 150+ years ago to protect the city from attacks.
Castillo San Cristobal is the largest fort that the Spanish built in the Americas.
It once covered over 27 acres but nearly a third of it was demolished to allow for the expansion of the city.
El Morro guarded San Juan from ocean attacks, San Cristobal guarded against land based attacks. We didn't visit El Morro - too far to walk, and with what time we had left we wanted to go and eat lunch. Food in our belly was more important.
The fort doesn't just look pretty, it's seen it's share of battles. The first shot by the Spanish in the Spanish-American war was fired from here. The US used it during World War II.
Just in case anyone wants to know, Castillo San Cristobal is walking distance from the cruise ship dock. We spent about an hour to an hour and a half here and it cost us $3.00 each. One of the cheapest tourist attractions I've been to in a while. You can spend longer here, we didn't watch the movie or explore some of the inside displays. But we didn't really feel like we missed anything.
That's our sightseeing and history lesson for the month. No doubt next time we have some time in port we'll go back to sitting in restaurants or cafes for food, drinks and internet.