Day #10: Back in Puerto Rico

With the cruise officially over, we still had one final day to spend touring Old San Juan before returning home.

Probably the greatest attraction in San Juan is El Murro, an old fort that was used to defend the island against attack since the 16th century.

The whole gang in El Murro:

We had also heard about this great little park where there are a ton of very well behaved pigeons the kids could feed. They loved it!

The Caboose had them eating right out of his hand.

My mom was a tad unnerved at having a couple pigeons perched on her!

The view from Pigeon Park:

One thing I love about San Juan is how OLD everything is. This island was discovered by Columbus in 1495, and Ponce de Leon was the first governor. The oldest Christian church in the New World is in San Juan - built in 1523. It was pretty awe-inspiring to sit inside that church on Palm Sunday.

Here's another little church we found next to Pigeon Park:

The kids loved seeing the blue bricks that were used to stabilize the old explorers ships on their way to the New World. Those bricks were then used to pave the streets in San Juan.

By the tenth day of vacation, the kids were thoroughly exhausted. There was a ton more to see on the island, but the kids just wanted to get back to the hotel and relax. It had been a pretty intense routine for the last week and a half, so after a brief lunch, they returned to a nice, air-conditioned hotel room.

Even though they were all exhausted, Diamond and I managed a bit more shopping before heading to our hotel. But later that evening, we enjoyed a wonderful stroll through the old city. The colors and feel of that beautiful, old city were amazing!

One final day of travel, leaving at 4am EST and not getting home until 10pm MST, and we were home. Our amazing, exciting, relaxing vacation was in the books. Oh, it was wonderful!