June 25, 2012

Several weeks ago Don and I went to Old San Juan and visited Fort San Cristobal.  This is a fort built by Spain to protect against land based attacks on the city of San Juan.  Today it is part of San Juan National History Site.



Castillo de San Cristóbal is the largest fortification built by the Spanish in the New World. When it was finished in 1783, it covered about 27 acres of land and basically wrapped around the city of San Juan. Entry to the city was sealed by San Cristóbal's double gates. After close to one hundred years of relative peace in the area, part of the fortification (about a third) was demolished in 1897 to help ease the flow of traffic in and out of the walled city.

This fortress was built on a hill originally known as the Cerro de la Horca or the Cerro del Quemadero, which was changed to Cerro de San Cristóbal in celebration of the Spanish victories ejecting English and Dutch interlopers from the island of this name in the Lesser Antilles, then forming part of the insular territorial glacis of Puerto Rico.

A Little Trivia:

This is where the Wizard Battle for the Wizards of Waverly Place movie took place between Justin and Alex (David Henrie and Selena Gomez). The director and crew filmed here for three days and found a few fragments from the 16th century pots. For this reason they needed archaeologists with them at all times whilst digging for the special effects. Also, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides was filmed here to act as a Spanish castle in Cadiz.

These are the three flags that fly at the Fort San Cristobal.  United States Flag, Puerto Rican flag and the old Spanish Military flag known as the Cross of Burgundy. 

What a wonderful picture. The Fort also had extensive tunnels and we got to go into them as well.  It was a great self-guided tour and it was completely “Gratis”. 

These were look outs!  Look at that ocean, beautiful and we get to sail out in that big wild open space.

We enjoyed this day in San Juan.

We have been along the West coast and about half of the South coast.  San Juan is on the North Coast towards the East end.  However; we have not been to the East coast yet.  Plan to do that when the boat is finished.  We still want to go to the rain forest and see more of the mountains.  We have something to look forward to as we continue to work on our boat.

Until next time…….

Don and Janis