San Cristobal Fort, San Juan

San Cristóbal Fort was built to protect San Juan from attack by sea. Along with El Morro, San Cristóbal Fort has been designated a National Historic Site and is part of a World Heritage Site.It is administered by the U.S. National Park Service. Open daily from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM.

El Fuerte San Cristóbal fue construído para proteger a San Juan de ataques por mar. Al igual que El Morro, el Fuerte San Cristóbal ha sido designado como Legado Histórico Nacional y es parte del “World Heritage Site”.

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Although I'm glad I visited this fort, I found El Morro much more picturesque. There are many rooms to visit deep within the fort and displays regarding the history and how the soldiers lived within the fort. We spent about 45 minutes here. Enough time to see everything within the fort.

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This is the second most popular fort to explore, which is on the Eastern edge of the Old City and was designed to protect it from a land attack from the West.
It was completed in the mid 1780's. There are commanding views of modern San Juan to the west and all of San Juan Bay to the South (including the modern cruise ship docks).

We walked through Fort San Cristobal. It was similar to the fort in Acapulco. This is one of the largest fortresses ever built in the Americas. built in 1634, the fort was redesigned in the 19th century. It is attached to El Morro by walls filled with cannon firing positions.

Castillo de San Cristobal is El Morro's
partner in the city's defense.
Built in 1634 (completed in 1771), was
considered the Gibraltar of the West Indies.
San Cristóbal was supported by a massive
system of outworks which provided defense
in depth and is is one of the largest defenses
ever built in the Americas.
It rose 150 feet, covering 27 acres of land.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

As if its size and height weren't sufficient to intimidate enemies,
its intricate modular design was sure to foil them.

A strategic masterpiece, it features five independent units, each
connected by moat and tunnel, each fully self sufficient should
the others fall.

It's a World Heritage and National Historic Site, administered
by the U.S. National Park Service.

Open daily from 9 A.M. to 6 P.M.

We had visited El Morro, the other fort in old San Juan, on our last visit so this time we headed to San Cristobal which was free for the day in honor of Martin Luther King Day. We just missed a ranger guided tour of the tunnels but caught the tail end of it, try to plan your visit for one of these because he seemed like a really good guide.

If you don't hit one of the guided tours, you are free to wander around the fort where you will find plenty of signs telling you what the various areas of the fort were used for and why San Juan even needed a fort at all.

Its only 10:28, its Monday and the heat outside is engulfing my psyche. The TV warns to veer away from alcohol and caffeine but instead I indulge on both. I drank a 2004 Chateau du Trignon Cotes du Rhone, and I wish my vision was more tunneled on the post-drink side but it is not. I am contemplating walking downstairs to grab a sixer and hope for anything in the perriferal to disappear. The ladies in the house Yuki and Jackie are practicing the Hawaiian slang. I need to go to the bodega. Someone give me a direct tunnel to the counter with beer in hand. I ask....please.

You can easily see El Morro and San Cristobal in the same afternoon. It's right along the northern part of Old San Juan.

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This fort was built after El Morro and San Juan was succesfully captured via a land invasion from Condado. This fort is huge!

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Make sure you visit this fort with it's many corriders and rooms filled with old photos and costumes etc.