We spent a total of four days in the capital San Juan: two and a half in the old part and (Viejo San Juan) and one and a half in the new part (Ocean Park).
Viejo San Juan is one of the oldest and most preserved Spanish settlement in the Americas and we loved it. We had booked a cute AirBnb on Calle San Francisco (that is no longer available), in the middle of the historic center, which is comprised in a small island connected to the new city by a bridge, and that had all the colonial charme that we expected. In Viejo San Juan you can walk trough the cobbled streets everywhere and you will be surrounded for the most part by beautiful, colorful, restored colonial buildings, especially in the area around Puerta de San Juana and El Morro. We saw the first sunset on the wonderful Paseo de la princesa, a boardwalk that runs all along the city walls by the ocean, that is filled with cats and iguanas!
We dedicated the next day visiting the impressive fortress of El Morro and the area around it, which is the leading tourist attraction for both tourists and puertoricans (and a US National Park landmark) and we loved it! The castle has a beautiful green field in front of it, where kids play flying kites and the very picturesque old cemetery of Santa María Magdalena de Pazzis.
We also visited the very interesting Museo de las Americas, right in front of the park and ate at the cute cafeteria inside Escuela de Artes Plásticas y Diseño.
The streets around El Convento (a famous building turned into a hotel, facing one of the prettiest square, Plaza de la Cathedral), The Gallery Inn (another artsy boutique hotel) and Plaza Salvador Brau are all beautiful, with many art galleries, restaurants and shops. Calle Nozargaray is facing the ocean and has a wonderful view, although the area right below it, La Perla, despite being a very colorful place to photograph -and where the video of Despacito was filmed-, is a shanty town and some say it may not be completely safe to visit. We also visited the other Viejo San Juan's fortress, Castillo San Cristobal and from there walked to la Playa del Escambrón, a popular beach on the eastern part of the island, right before the bridge and surrounded by a nice park.
We had dinner at the popular El Jibarito and Hecho in casa and two amazing pastries-filled breakfasts at the Spanish Cafeteria Mallorca, down the street from our apartment.
In our last two days in PR we stayed in new San Juan, in the nice residential area of Ocean Park and spent a night at Andalucia Guesthouse, right in front of another very famous bakery, Kasalta. The neighborhood between Ocean Park and El Condado is very pleasant to walk through, being home to many wealthy mansions surrounded by beautiful gardens and also the city most expensive's hotels, and right on the beach. We saw a very nice music festival in Plaza Antonia Quiñones and ate a good burger at the popular The Place.
We also drove through los barrios of Miramar, famous for it art déco architecture, and the densely populated and culturally vibrant Santurce, where you can see a lot of interesting street art and visit the two main art museums of the city: the Museum of Art of Puerto Rico and the Puerto Rican Museum of Contemporary Art.
We spent half a day at the beach at Isla Verde and took a drive through the ocean road going east to the famous food stalls (kioskos) of Piñones, where you can taste the real Puertorican food like mofongo, tostones, alcapurrias, arepas and empanadas.