Ponce - Puerto Rico
Seaduced
John & Jane Craven
Mon 6 Feb 2012 20:28
| After much discussion last night we decided to shorten the distance we had planned to travel, as the roads just make seeing the whole island impossible. The island is only a maximum of 105 miles long, but the actual roads make the trip more like 400 miles as they are so windy and twisty. In order to spend less time driving and more time enjoying the island, we went more or less straight south to Ponce so that we would visit only the central and eastern side of the island. As Ponce is the second city of Puerto Rico, the write-ups and information make it out to be a grand old town so we booked 2 nights as it is Alan's birthday on the 8th. The photos shown in the books are of the two sights below, the fountain and the Parque des Bombas, the old fire house. These are immediately next to each other and the whole of the rest of the town has nothing at all to recommend it. The shops are very basic and as for the several fine restaurants we read about, they simply do not exist. After an hour or so trying to find somewhere to eat for lunch, we ended up with an at best poor meal and resolved to cancel the second night and move on. At the time of writing our plans for the next two days are unclear, maybe a nice beach or possibly even back to San Juan which we all liked. One of the problems we are facing is that nearly all the tourist attractions seem to be closed on Monday and Tuesday, even some of the public beaches as it is the winter season here, the same as at home. That said, we had thought we would be safe in the city and find things to occupy our time, but apparently not, everything here is closed also. The one slightly redeeming feature of the trip was the Argentinian restaurant we managed to find for dinner - at least we had a reasonably good meal!! |