Cruise Day 8

Wednesday March 2   (Ash Wednesday)

San Juan, Puerto Rico     -     8 am     -     2 pm

“Begin in Old San Juan, a walled enclave of hundreds of restored 16th and 17th century Spanish colonial buildings. Notice the blue-tinged cobblestone streets; they were once ballast on Spanish ships. Elsewhere, tour the medieval Saint John the Baptist Cathedral, the Museum of Art, and Casa del Libro, a repository of priceless documents.”

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We have been in this port before. Just for 1 day at this time and I wrote then also a blog in February 2018. This time the experience was different. 

Land ahoi. Of course James would not miss it. And it is on "our" side.

We arrived so early that photo taking of the fort would not be good. 

I think this is called 'bunkering'. After having been tied up the ship got fuel.

When we could go on land we had a mission. We had to find a post office. Ha-ha, since we are now on USA ground not a problem. We can use the GPS on our iphones. I had 4 picture postcards from St Lucia to post. 2 to England and 2 to the USA. 

As it was Ashwednesday our second mission was to find an open church. It is very nice to wander through the streets of San Juan. Everything seems quite laid back. Love to look at the architecture. Nice little parks here and there or at least some trees, a sculpture or fountain. 

Of course most churches are catholic, the Spanish influence. This is the Cathedral of San Juan. We don't get our ashes today but we can sit for a while and contemplate. Most of all we can be thankful. 

I so remember this little park with the gorgeous tree from 4 years ago. 

We didn't see quite as many cats this time. May be it was too hot for them today?

We saw a walkway down below behind the above wall and found a gate to go there. Very nice.

It brought us around the corner to this fountain with and without the spray. I think the fountain was called 'Raices'.

We didn't get lunch but we were thirsty. We thought this was exactly where we sat last time at the Plaza De Colòn.

It was time to go back to the ship.

Got to do the tourist thing.

I had seen these when we had left and taken note to Christa 'take photo'.

From our balcony: bunkering still happening.

And yes, almost way past lunchtime.

Loudspeaker announcement that due to some harbor problems we would leave later which turned out to even be a little later than they had said. We could have gone back on land but were perfectly happy to chill.

And yes, picture taking floating by the fort was much better when we were leaving. 

Ha-ha, my attempt at selfies. Really, James should do that. His arms are much longer then mine.

Oh, yes, chilling.

Two days ago we had received an invitation from Captain Luca Manzi and his General Manager to a private cocktail party in the Horizons at 5:45pm. (not really sure why having only been twice on one of their ships) Attire: Country Club Casual

It was quite interesting. You saw it all. The Marina Band even had bow ties on. Well, we did our best. We had some nice chats, nibbles and champaign. 

Soon afterwards it was dinner time. We had not arranged it with anybody else and we were not really hungry.

At 9:15pm it was time to go to the show room. This time it was the Comedian Darrell Joyce again. It was not quite as good as the first time, mainly because I didn't like what he told at the end about his parents. 

We were just too tired for anything else afterwards and went to bed. We did have to do some preparation for next morning because it was going to be our last excursion and we were told to show up at 7:55am. We needed to pack swimsuits and towels etc etc and have had breakfast.

Night, night!