San Juan

The colours in Old San Juan are not subtle. Terracotta, cerulean, canary yellow — entire blocks of colonial architecture painted as if someone handed the city a Pantone deck and said have fun. It sounds like it shouldn't work. It absolutely works.

We stayed in a small guesthouse on Calle San Francisco, two blocks from the water. The owners left a small whiteboard by the door with the day's best restaurant picks and the hours El Morro was least crowded. Both turned out to be accurate.

El Morro deserves more time than most visitors give it. The fortifications extend far beyond the main structure — tunnels, lower batteries, sentry boxes perched above the water — and the grassy esplanade outside is where every local seems to go on Sunday evenings to fly kites into the Atlantic wind.

August is nominally hurricane season, which keeps some visitors away and keeps the prices reasonable. The days are hot and sometimes briefly violent with rain; the evenings are perfect.

La Mallorca for the mallorca bread with ham and powdered sugar. Caficultura for espresso. El Jibarito for mofongo when you want the version that no tourist review has touched.