Easy Caribbean: San Juan, Puerto Rico | Travel, San Juan, Puerto Rico, Andrea Poe | DONNE TEMPO
Easy Caribbean: San Juan, Puerto Rico
Easy Caribbean: San Juan, Puerto Rico
by Andrea Poe
Old San Juan Beach Wall (Photo/A. PoeKeyed
up, Type A people like me don’t often find
nirvana plunking down poolside and basking in the
Caribbean sun, but a mind-numbingly busy year
drove me to discover one of the most relaxing
spots on earth --- San Juan, Puerto Rico.
I had a few basic requirements for my destination: It had to be warm, it had to be easy to get to and it had to be a place that’d please my harried husband, our three-year-old daughter and my mother as much as it did me.
While Puerto Rico is renown for its secluded getaways, its world-class surfing in places like Playa Higuero in Rincon and great snorkeling in out of the way spots like Playa Esperanza, for this trip I had put a premium on ease, and the ocean-front city of San Juan delivered.
We got from snowy Washington, D.C. to sunny San Juan in less time than it takes to drive to New York City. From the Luis Munoz International Airport, it was a five- minute taxi ride (literally, five minutes) to the door of our hotel. And that’s the greatest thing about San Juan. There are buses (slow, but cheap) and cabs (readily available, but not so cheap) that can ferry you anywhere in the city, so there’s no need to rent a car.
Once there, you’re rewarded with all the great pleasures of the Caribbean: surf sun and sand. Plus, San Juan happens to have three distinct and truly interesting neighborhoods that travelers shouldn’t miss when visiting San Juan: Isla Verde, El Condado and Old San Juan.
Isla Verde
We stayed at The Intercontinental Resort & Casino in Isla Verde, a hotel designed in the mid-1950s by Morris Lapidus, one of the leaders in postmodernist architecture. For those who aren’t inspired by cold and boxy no matter how famous its creator, the lush tropic gardens make this a beachfront sanctuary.
Intercontinental Resort/A. PoeDespite
the fact that you’re in the heart of a busy,
high-rise district of the city, once you step in
the hotel, the focus is on the profuse plantings
of the pool garden and the unbroken ocean vistas.
You’d never know you were in the city. In fact,
plenty of newts don’t; they scurry back and forth
across the pool deck as if they were in the
rainforest.
The Intercontinental delivers all the bells and whistles you’d except at a Puerto Rican resort – a spa, casino, exercise and cocktail-making classes, a pool bar—but elevates the experience with exceptional service. By the end of the first day the staff knew my daughter’s name was Maxine. By the next morning, the staff knew all of us. You can’t poke a toe onto sand without someone from the hotel proffering a lounge chair. We’d loaded up on buckets, pails and beach toys at a local shop but that proved, totally unnecessary. Everything kids could want, including games like Candy Land and Jenga, are free to borrow.
There are four restaurants inside the hotel, including Ruth Chris, an Italian restaurant called Alfredo, and Splash which serves poolside. The casual beachfront restaurant, where my daughter leaned to sing “I Like Pina Coladas” has tables directly on the sand, where inexplicably a gaggle of roosters like to visit. But the best restaurant of all is tucked beside the 24-hour casino, Momoyama. Although the trend in San Juan right now is sushi and all things Asian, this place isn’t part of that trendy wave. It’s actually owned by a Japanese family and delivers up very good, unpretentious sushi. The super crunchy is a massive roll with fresh tuna, salmon and a bit of spice topped off with a greaseless crunch.
Although the hotel offers a good breakfast, it runs almost $30 for a buffet. Most mornings we found ourselves heading to Mi Casita, a hole-in-the-wall inside the Plazoleta strip mall across the street. For $2.99 you get eggs and Puerto Rican toast and home fries (sometimes with sweet potatoes tossed in) and a chance to meet locals, as well as fellow travelers, who are staying in condos and other hotels on Isla Verde.
A couple of doors down is Surf Head, a small surf shop inside the strip mall that sells sunscreen, surf boards, Body Glove clothing, Tierney skateboards, bikinis and Reef sandals. An incredibly friendly staff helped my daughter buy her first pair of Crocs, steering us towards the more cutting edge ballet Crocs, “Be an original,” the salesgirl advised Maxine.
The nearby Ritz Carlton is known for its spa. Indulge in one of the locally-inspired treatments, like the rainforest massage, which incorporates flowers and fruits from the nearby El Yunque Rainforest or the Café Con Leche body exfoliation, which taps Puerto Rican coffee and coconut milk. Grab a drink in the lofty lobby bar, which overlooks a pool fed by fountains fashioned from the Ritz’s signature lions. Drinks come with tasty snacks like stuffed olives and fried plantains on a sculptural glass dish. A resident rummelier (like a sommelier but focused exclusively on rum) has put together tasting that helps you break down the intricacies of different island’s rums and helps you get a nice buzz going.
The Water Club, a small white hotel that sits across the street from the public beach, delivers a less resorty experience. Floor-to-ceiling windows draw the ocean inside the modern rooms, and waterfalls inside the elevators make a statement. The day we visited, what we saw on a balcony could’ve been plucked from an episode of “Miami Vice”: two women in white bikinis and two men in billowy white shirts, drinking a bottle of Dom Perignon while a white pit bill lay at their feet. (The hotel is pet-friendly). To catch a glimpse of celebrities from the island and the mainland, stop for a drink at Liquid, the hotel’s trendy lounge.
El Condado
It’s always immensely satisfying to discover the next big thing. In San Juan, El Condado is it. It was founded in the early 20th century as an upper middle class “suburb” across the famous Puente Dos Hermanos from Old San Juan. In the past few years, waterfront high rises and hotels have been
Andrea and Maxine Poe Photo/A. Poerenovated,
high-end boutiques like Cartier, Ferragamo and
Gucci, along with a bevy of hip restaurants have
moved in.
The hotels in this area are becoming increasingly popular with tourists because El Condado is much closer to Old San Juan –the center of shopping and nightlife—than Isla Verde. And in a city where a round-trip taxi ride to Old San Juan back to your Isla Verde hotel can run $50 (for a fifteen minute ride), proximity matters.
Whether you stay overnight or not, visit La Concha. It’s one of the most buzzed about hotels in the city, and for good reason. It’s fun and fresh. Built in 1958, this hotel has been completely updated and reconceived with ironic installations, like seven-foot tall plastic lamps and an “aquarium” of a paper mobile blowing inside a Plexiglas tank. Don’t fail to look out back where the hotel’s iconic namesake swooping shell makes this building a mid-century treasure. Beneath is Perla, a high-end seafood restaurant conceived by chef Dayn Smith, and which has garnered a loyal local following.
Across the street in an Art Déco townhouse is Budatai, the brainchild of Chef Roberto Trevino, who gained fame when he narrowly lost to Mario Batali on Iron Chef last season. His imaginative Latin-Asian fusion menu delivers up inventive dishes like grilled pork chops with stir fried yucca and his unbeatably fresh geisha roll made from lobster, cream cheese and jicama. The second floor is home to a sexy lounge, where the chic converge after dark.
The main drag, Ashford Avenue, is like a mini and less harried Rodeo Drive. Drivers in dark sedans with tinted windows idle as ladies in expensive short-skirted suits dart into boutiques where salesgirls teeter behind them in Laboutin heels.
The ideal spot for a break is a plaza called La Ventana al Mar, Window to the Sea, which was designed in 2004 as a focal point for the renaissance of this neighborhood. Here, tourists take photos as teenage couples hold hands on benches, children chase pigeons, and old men tilt their faces to the sun. Walk out on to the promontory that jets out into the ocean for dramatic views of waves crashing against giant boulders on this rough stretch of beach.
Old San Juan
Colorful Homes/A. PoeThis
neighborhood, the jewel of the island, was
founded by the Spanish in 1521. A 42-foot high
sandstone wall still mostly envelopes Old San
Juan in a dramatic way, shielding it from the San
Juan Bay and the Atlantic.
The narrow cobblestone lanes will remind you of Europe; the colorful houses punctuated with ornate wrought iron balconies will conjure New Orleans (only without the Formosa termites).
This busy part of town has a little bit of everything. Little boutiques selling local handicrafts stand side-by-side with bodegas, and imposing government buildings tower over the modest carriage houses beside them. Because Old San Juan is a cruise ship stop, it was inevitable that chain stores like Ralph Lauren and Coach would invade, and they have, but they’ve been retrofitted into historic mansions with slanting wood floorboards, cracked tiled steps and chipping plaster walls, which make perusing basic oxford shirts a tinge more exotic.
El Morro is a six-storey castle-like fort that’s impossible to miss no matter where you are in Old San Juan. Built in 1539, it’s a World Heritage Site. Far from a tourist trap, the great lawn with wide ocean vistas is a place where art students from the nearby School of Plastic Arts buy empandas and mango helado from street vendors, and where families picnic and fly kites.
Cats in San Juan Photo/A. PoeThe
cats of Old San Juan are something no one talks
about, and I’m not sure why. They are everywhere,
literally tumbling out of alleyways and darting
from beneath cars. These cats should be the
collective mascot of Old San Juan. In the
evenings, people descend from their apartments
with bowls of fresh water; storekeepers bring
trays of kibble to them before closing up. This
has contributed the most confident, carefree and
comfortable strays cats I’ve ever seen.
The long Calle Fortaleza, the unofficial “ center” of street life, is home to three of the city’s best restaurants.
The Parrot Club is owned by a married couple who’s worked hard to make this restaurant a favorite among locals and visitors. My daughter fell in love with the honey-soaked plantains. Tuna served in rum and orange sauce is very much in the sprit of the Nuevo Latino movement this restaurant help jumpstart in the city.
Across the street is Dragonfly, where family dining isn’t the specialty. The first clue should be the beautiful young women who police the door. Come chicly coiffed or forget crossing the threshold. (Tip: The earlier you go, the easier it is to get in). The bordello-red walls signal this is a sexy spot to have fresh sushi like and experimental tapas like smoked duck nachos.
Parrot Club/A. PoeA
couple of blocks down stands the high-concept
Marmalade, owned by California-raised chef Peter
Schintler, who did a stint at Le Cirque in New
York. The chef is often on the floor explaining
his unconventional combinations of ingredients,
like tuna tartare on hummus topped with raita and
served with homemade pita and his signature white
bean soup with scallions, black truffle oil and
pancetta.
Unlike many meat-heavy restaurants in San Juan, Marmalade has substantial vegetarian offerings, like spaghetti squash sautéed in coconut milk and toped with macadamia nuts.
Staying in Old San Juan means immersing oneself in the vibrant cultural center of the city, but it also means there’s no direct access to the beach. (Some hotels have beach privileges at “sister” properties.)
El Convento is across the street from Catedral de San Juan (where you can find the remains of Ponce de Leon). It was originally built as a Carmelite convent 300 years ago and although the building has been luxuriously renovated, you get a visceral sense of its past thanks to original marble checkerboard floors, dark-beamed halls, arched doorways and an open-air courtyard. If you can’t stay here, grab a Modella (locally-brewed lager) and late afternoon tapas on the patio of El Picoteo, a perfect perch for people watching.
The Gallery Inn, owned by an artist and decorated with an abundance of art and antiques feels less like a hotel than an eccentric aunt’s splendid Caribbean home. Multiple pocket gardens and a secluded swimming pool with fountain make this a sanctuary in the heart of the hustle. Every few weeks, the owner hosts a concert in The Music Room, and guests are always encouraged to take to the piano.
In the end, for me, it was the beach that beckoned. Despite all the great historic, artistic, cultural and culinary discoveries I made in San Juan, the highlight of this trip was holding hands with my three-year-old daughter, scampering across the smooth Caribbean sand, cackling with laugher as the waves crashed around us.
by Andrea Poe
Old San Juan Beach Wall (Photo/A. Poe
I had a few basic requirements for my destination: It had to be warm, it had to be easy to get to and it had to be a place that’d please my harried husband, our three-year-old daughter and my mother as much as it did me.
While Puerto Rico is renown for its secluded getaways, its world-class surfing in places like Playa Higuero in Rincon and great snorkeling in out of the way spots like Playa Esperanza, for this trip I had put a premium on ease, and the ocean-front city of San Juan delivered.
We got from snowy Washington, D.C. to sunny San Juan in less time than it takes to drive to New York City. From the Luis Munoz International Airport, it was a five- minute taxi ride (literally, five minutes) to the door of our hotel. And that’s the greatest thing about San Juan. There are buses (slow, but cheap) and cabs (readily available, but not so cheap) that can ferry you anywhere in the city, so there’s no need to rent a car.
Once there, you’re rewarded with all the great pleasures of the Caribbean: surf sun and sand. Plus, San Juan happens to have three distinct and truly interesting neighborhoods that travelers shouldn’t miss when visiting San Juan: Isla Verde, El Condado and Old San Juan.
Isla Verde
We stayed at The Intercontinental Resort & Casino in Isla Verde, a hotel designed in the mid-1950s by Morris Lapidus, one of the leaders in postmodernist architecture. For those who aren’t inspired by cold and boxy no matter how famous its creator, the lush tropic gardens make this a beachfront sanctuary.
Intercontinental Resort/A. Poe
The Intercontinental delivers all the bells and whistles you’d except at a Puerto Rican resort – a spa, casino, exercise and cocktail-making classes, a pool bar—but elevates the experience with exceptional service. By the end of the first day the staff knew my daughter’s name was Maxine. By the next morning, the staff knew all of us. You can’t poke a toe onto sand without someone from the hotel proffering a lounge chair. We’d loaded up on buckets, pails and beach toys at a local shop but that proved, totally unnecessary. Everything kids could want, including games like Candy Land and Jenga, are free to borrow.
There are four restaurants inside the hotel, including Ruth Chris, an Italian restaurant called Alfredo, and Splash which serves poolside. The casual beachfront restaurant, where my daughter leaned to sing “I Like Pina Coladas” has tables directly on the sand, where inexplicably a gaggle of roosters like to visit. But the best restaurant of all is tucked beside the 24-hour casino, Momoyama. Although the trend in San Juan right now is sushi and all things Asian, this place isn’t part of that trendy wave. It’s actually owned by a Japanese family and delivers up very good, unpretentious sushi. The super crunchy is a massive roll with fresh tuna, salmon and a bit of spice topped off with a greaseless crunch.
Although the hotel offers a good breakfast, it runs almost $30 for a buffet. Most mornings we found ourselves heading to Mi Casita, a hole-in-the-wall inside the Plazoleta strip mall across the street. For $2.99 you get eggs and Puerto Rican toast and home fries (sometimes with sweet potatoes tossed in) and a chance to meet locals, as well as fellow travelers, who are staying in condos and other hotels on Isla Verde.
A couple of doors down is Surf Head, a small surf shop inside the strip mall that sells sunscreen, surf boards, Body Glove clothing, Tierney skateboards, bikinis and Reef sandals. An incredibly friendly staff helped my daughter buy her first pair of Crocs, steering us towards the more cutting edge ballet Crocs, “Be an original,” the salesgirl advised Maxine.
The nearby Ritz Carlton is known for its spa. Indulge in one of the locally-inspired treatments, like the rainforest massage, which incorporates flowers and fruits from the nearby El Yunque Rainforest or the Café Con Leche body exfoliation, which taps Puerto Rican coffee and coconut milk. Grab a drink in the lofty lobby bar, which overlooks a pool fed by fountains fashioned from the Ritz’s signature lions. Drinks come with tasty snacks like stuffed olives and fried plantains on a sculptural glass dish. A resident rummelier (like a sommelier but focused exclusively on rum) has put together tasting that helps you break down the intricacies of different island’s rums and helps you get a nice buzz going.
The Water Club, a small white hotel that sits across the street from the public beach, delivers a less resorty experience. Floor-to-ceiling windows draw the ocean inside the modern rooms, and waterfalls inside the elevators make a statement. The day we visited, what we saw on a balcony could’ve been plucked from an episode of “Miami Vice”: two women in white bikinis and two men in billowy white shirts, drinking a bottle of Dom Perignon while a white pit bill lay at their feet. (The hotel is pet-friendly). To catch a glimpse of celebrities from the island and the mainland, stop for a drink at Liquid, the hotel’s trendy lounge.
El Condado
It’s always immensely satisfying to discover the next big thing. In San Juan, El Condado is it. It was founded in the early 20th century as an upper middle class “suburb” across the famous Puente Dos Hermanos from Old San Juan. In the past few years, waterfront high rises and hotels have been
Andrea and Maxine Poe Photo/A. Poe
The hotels in this area are becoming increasingly popular with tourists because El Condado is much closer to Old San Juan –the center of shopping and nightlife—than Isla Verde. And in a city where a round-trip taxi ride to Old San Juan back to your Isla Verde hotel can run $50 (for a fifteen minute ride), proximity matters.
Whether you stay overnight or not, visit La Concha. It’s one of the most buzzed about hotels in the city, and for good reason. It’s fun and fresh. Built in 1958, this hotel has been completely updated and reconceived with ironic installations, like seven-foot tall plastic lamps and an “aquarium” of a paper mobile blowing inside a Plexiglas tank. Don’t fail to look out back where the hotel’s iconic namesake swooping shell makes this building a mid-century treasure. Beneath is Perla, a high-end seafood restaurant conceived by chef Dayn Smith, and which has garnered a loyal local following.
Across the street in an Art Déco townhouse is Budatai, the brainchild of Chef Roberto Trevino, who gained fame when he narrowly lost to Mario Batali on Iron Chef last season. His imaginative Latin-Asian fusion menu delivers up inventive dishes like grilled pork chops with stir fried yucca and his unbeatably fresh geisha roll made from lobster, cream cheese and jicama. The second floor is home to a sexy lounge, where the chic converge after dark.
The main drag, Ashford Avenue, is like a mini and less harried Rodeo Drive. Drivers in dark sedans with tinted windows idle as ladies in expensive short-skirted suits dart into boutiques where salesgirls teeter behind them in Laboutin heels.
The ideal spot for a break is a plaza called La Ventana al Mar, Window to the Sea, which was designed in 2004 as a focal point for the renaissance of this neighborhood. Here, tourists take photos as teenage couples hold hands on benches, children chase pigeons, and old men tilt their faces to the sun. Walk out on to the promontory that jets out into the ocean for dramatic views of waves crashing against giant boulders on this rough stretch of beach.
Old San Juan
Colorful Homes/A. Poe
The narrow cobblestone lanes will remind you of Europe; the colorful houses punctuated with ornate wrought iron balconies will conjure New Orleans (only without the Formosa termites).
This busy part of town has a little bit of everything. Little boutiques selling local handicrafts stand side-by-side with bodegas, and imposing government buildings tower over the modest carriage houses beside them. Because Old San Juan is a cruise ship stop, it was inevitable that chain stores like Ralph Lauren and Coach would invade, and they have, but they’ve been retrofitted into historic mansions with slanting wood floorboards, cracked tiled steps and chipping plaster walls, which make perusing basic oxford shirts a tinge more exotic.
El Morro is a six-storey castle-like fort that’s impossible to miss no matter where you are in Old San Juan. Built in 1539, it’s a World Heritage Site. Far from a tourist trap, the great lawn with wide ocean vistas is a place where art students from the nearby School of Plastic Arts buy empandas and mango helado from street vendors, and where families picnic and fly kites.
Cats in San Juan Photo/A. Poe
The long Calle Fortaleza, the unofficial “ center” of street life, is home to three of the city’s best restaurants.
The Parrot Club is owned by a married couple who’s worked hard to make this restaurant a favorite among locals and visitors. My daughter fell in love with the honey-soaked plantains. Tuna served in rum and orange sauce is very much in the sprit of the Nuevo Latino movement this restaurant help jumpstart in the city.
Across the street is Dragonfly, where family dining isn’t the specialty. The first clue should be the beautiful young women who police the door. Come chicly coiffed or forget crossing the threshold. (Tip: The earlier you go, the easier it is to get in). The bordello-red walls signal this is a sexy spot to have fresh sushi like and experimental tapas like smoked duck nachos.
Parrot Club/A. Poe
Unlike many meat-heavy restaurants in San Juan, Marmalade has substantial vegetarian offerings, like spaghetti squash sautéed in coconut milk and toped with macadamia nuts.
Staying in Old San Juan means immersing oneself in the vibrant cultural center of the city, but it also means there’s no direct access to the beach. (Some hotels have beach privileges at “sister” properties.)
El Convento is across the street from Catedral de San Juan (where you can find the remains of Ponce de Leon). It was originally built as a Carmelite convent 300 years ago and although the building has been luxuriously renovated, you get a visceral sense of its past thanks to original marble checkerboard floors, dark-beamed halls, arched doorways and an open-air courtyard. If you can’t stay here, grab a Modella (locally-brewed lager) and late afternoon tapas on the patio of El Picoteo, a perfect perch for people watching.
The Gallery Inn, owned by an artist and decorated with an abundance of art and antiques feels less like a hotel than an eccentric aunt’s splendid Caribbean home. Multiple pocket gardens and a secluded swimming pool with fountain make this a sanctuary in the heart of the hustle. Every few weeks, the owner hosts a concert in The Music Room, and guests are always encouraged to take to the piano.
In the end, for me, it was the beach that beckoned. Despite all the great historic, artistic, cultural and culinary discoveries I made in San Juan, the highlight of this trip was holding hands with my three-year-old daughter, scampering across the smooth Caribbean sand, cackling with laugher as the waves crashed around us.