December 17, 2023

Things to Do in San Juan, PR

As you know we recently went to Puerto Rico for our anniversary. I want to share all things we enjoyed and did in Puerto Rico in this blog post. Moreover, I didn’t know there is so much to do in PR.

There will be four posts. Firstly, two posts will highlight what we did on the mainland PR i.e. SJ, Fajardo, Luquillo & El Yunque (we stayed 3 nights). Most importantly, there are many more places and things to do, but I have shared what we did on our trip. Ultimately, next posts will cover Culebra and Vieques Islands.

San Juan is the capital city of Puerto Rico. Most of the flights, land in San Juan airport. Besides, Puerto Rico is also called the La Isla del Encanto or Island of Enchantment.

Old San Juan was built by Spanish settlers in 1512, second oldest European settlement in US. Particularly, Old San Juan also is home to cruise ships. It offers some awesome views, history and culture and you would love to walk around in cobble stone streets. Undoubtedly, the architecture is and building are so beautiful.

Street Parking is very difficult in old San Juan. Since parking is tough, think before you book a rental car for yourself. Everything is in walking distance. We found a parking garage for reasonable price and parked there for whole day and walked around the town. We parked at La Puntilla parking garage.

Places to explore in Old San Juan

Escambron Green – Firstly, beautiful park that also connects to a beach. We landed early morning and spent at this place for few hours and watched sunrise. You will see a lot of people come out here to walk and exercise if you visit here early morning. It was good to watch in their natural lifestyle.

Paseo De La Princesa – To sum up, after breakfast, we walked around to this location and then continued walking on the side of the water and enjoyed the breeze and explored the many sites. If you continue walking to the right of the fountain, you will come across Old San Juan gate (Puerta De San Juan), Cat sanctuary and you also get to experience ‘Garitas’

Castillo Sa Felipe Del Morro – We continued walking and came to the fort. You can take a tour of inside the fort for a small fee. We just hung outside and enjoyed the incredible views. We saw people kite flying too in the park.

Castillo San Cristobal – Besides ,this is another fort to explore.

La Garita Del Morro

Plaza Colon – downtown plaza where there are lot of restaurants around.

Parc De Las Paloma – Very chill spot for bird sitting around.

La Fortaleza – Shopping area. Obviously, We came another day to stroll around here for some shopping.

Beaches- there are few beaches around San Juan like Condado, Puerta de Tierra, Miramar.

In my opinion, you can go around Old San Juan in 1-2 days easily. To conclude, you don’t need more than that.

Where to Stay in San Juan

We stayed in a location called Fajardo (rented an Airbnb), which was 1 hour drive from San Juan. It is a very peaceful and quite place to stay. Particularly, I would suggest you stay in either San Juan and finish sightseeing there and then move further. We do not like to stay in touristy places. Therefore, we selected Fajardo. After our trip we thought about Luquillo being a better place to stay. Its equal distance to San Juan and Fajardo/Ceiba.

There are plenty of options to stay in Old San Juan or Condado neighborhood. In addition, Condado also has beach and lots of good food. Next time, we may stay in Condado.

Other things to do around

Because we stayed near Fajardo, we got to experience few things nearby like Seven Seas beach. Which in my opinion was okay. We didn’t like it.

Where to Eat

Café Cuatro Sombras – we had breakfast at this place as it was across our parking garage. If you want light breakfast, they have very good options. You will love it. I tried a guava and cheese croissant sandwich. It comes with meat but asked them to not add any meat. My husband had an avocado toast, and we shared an orange chocolate cake slice.

Caficultura – this one was number 1 on our list for some good café experience, but we could not try it.

Chocobar Cortes – Great chocolate offerings. Always very busy.

For local cuisine – we could only try one place called Barrachina. We were told this restaurant invented Pina Colada. We tried local dish called Mofongo and Pina Colada. Both were okay. Moreover, I cannot say if the mofongo could be better at any other places, because we only got to try it here. I was glad that they offered a vegetarian mofongo.

Other restaurants for local cuisine :

Café Berlin – heard they have very good vegetarian mofongo.
Café Botanico also looked good.
El Jibarito
Deaverdura
La Casita Blanca
Lote 23 – open air food stalls
Burger Social in Condado
La Coffeeteera – Brunch
Waiter’s Gastro Bar
Cocina Abierto – Fine dining, course meals.
Marmalade – Fine Dining
Pirillo Pizza

Cafe Cuatro Sombras – Guava cheese croissant sandwich/breakfast

Bakeries to try local foods

Kasalta Bakery

We got to try few local bakes like Mallorca bun a brioche like bread with powdered sugar on top.

Local dessert Tembleque. We loved this custard like dessert. Try it, it made with coconut milk, cornstarch and had cinnamon topping. As far as I know, its eggless. This bakery is outside Old San Juan, so you will need a car.

Try local guava-based pastry that has a lot of powdered sugar on top called Pastelito. Or a cheese and guava puff pastry. Flan is another famous dessert in the Puerto Rico.

Cafeteria Mallorca
Café Cuatro Estaciones.
Senor Paleta or any other paleta shop for some paletas.
Limbers – flavored ice served in cups like helados.

Guava Pastry and Mallorca Bun at Kasalta Bakery

Fajardo

We stayed in Airbnb in Fajardo, so we also explored that area. One evening, we were very tired to go out, so we went to our neighborhood restaurants. Fajardo is beautiful place, but I guess not for everyone. You can rent water taxis/boats to little islands nearby. So, its best place for that reason. El Yunque was also closer to Fajardo and Ceiba, where all the ferries go to other islands is also closer. So, we decided for Fajardo. I am sharing this info, so you can decide what neighborhood is best for you.

In future, if we go again – I would like to spend 2-3 days in San Juan probably Condado neighborhood and then stay near Fajardo or Luquillo to access ferries.

Things to do

Beaches

Bioluminescence trip

Day trip to Icacos Island by water taxi

Where to eat Fajardo

Café Playero – decent meal. Looks okay place, but food was fresh and good. I tried local food, vegetables stuffed arepas . I loved them. They were made from plaintain and slight sweetness. They provided some add hot sauce, and it was perfect. My husband had fish tacos and he liked them. Nothing extra ordinary but decent meal.

Pizza Rustica – One evening we went to have pizza. Lol. We planned for some fine dining, but for some reason didn’t work out. Loved our pizza and bruschetta dinner.

Other places –