Inside the Old San Juan Forts: El Morro and San Cristóbal, Level by Level

Fares for the walks that go inside them are on the fort tours in Old San Juan listings. What follows is what you will find once you are through the gate.

They are usually described as a pair, which is fair, and then described as the same kind of place, which is not. One faces the sea and one faces the land, they were built ninety-five years apart for opposite reasons, and they reward completely different kinds of attention. Knowing which is which before you walk in is most of the value of a guide.

Why there are two of them

Castillo San Felipe del Morro came first, in 1539, on the headland at the mouth of the bay. Its job was to stop a fleet, and against a fleet it worked. The English and Dutch attacks of the sixteen-hundreds exposed the flaw: a force that landed east of the city and came overland found the town's back turned.

Castillo San Cristóbal, dating from 1634, is the answer to that. The National Park Service puts its purpose in one sentence — built to protect the city from attack by land from the east. The whole shape of the place follows from it. The longer sequence is on the history page.

Castillo San Cristóbal, level by level

Start here, because it is nearest and because it is the harder one to read without help.

• The main plaza de armas. The parade ground at the top, and the point from which the rest makes sense.
• The ramparts and the sentry boxes. Looking east over the modern city and north to the Atlantic.
• The tunnels. The connections between the main work and its outer positions, which is the part nobody expects.
• The dry moat and its bridge. Crossed on the way in, and the best single photograph on the site.
• The outworks. Twenty-seven acres of them, pushed further east by each generation as artillery ranges grew.

Forty-five minutes covers the plaza and the ramparts. Ninety gets you the tunnels and the outworks as well. Full detail is on the San Cristóbal page.

Castillo San Felipe del Morro, level by level

Six levels, and they step down the seaward face rather than stacking up, so the experience is of descending into the work.

• The esplanade. Not part of the fort, and the best part of arriving. The park names kite flying on it.
• The upper terraces. The batteries, the long views out to sea and back across the bay towards Cataño.
• The ramps. How guns were moved between levels, and how you will move between them.
• The casemates. Vaulted rooms in the lower levels, and reliably the coolest place in the old city.
• The seaward garitas. The sentry boxes on the corners, and the image most people came for.

If you have one hour, spend it on the esplanade and the upper terraces. Full detail is on the El Morro page.

Which to do first

The order above is the efficient one: San Cristóbal, then the length of the old city on foot, then El Morro before five o'clock. That is the shape most of the guided walks here already take.

The one receipt

Adult entry is $10.00 and the receipt is valid for 24 hours at both fortifications. Children of 15 and under are free. The park does not accept cash. Practically, that means you can do one fort on the afternoon you arrive and the other the next morning without paying twice, which is a better day than cramming both into three hours.

What is between them

Twenty-five minutes of walking, and it is not dead time. Calle Norzagaray runs along the northern edge above the Atlantic, past the Ballajá barracks and the cemetery below El Morro. The alternative route drops through the middle of the old city past the Cathedral and Plaza de Armas. Either way you are on the wall line for part of it.

What to look for that most visitors walk past

Five things, and none of them is signposted as a highlight.

• The garitas on the seaward corners of El Morro. The domed sentry boxes are the silhouette of this whole city, and the best of them are at the far end of the upper terraces rather than beside the entrance.
• The ramps rather than the stairs. Both forts moved guns as well as men, and the ramps are the reason a six-level work is walkable at all.
• The casemates at El Morro. Vaulted rooms in the lower levels, and reliably the coolest air in the old city on a hot afternoon.
• The dry moat at San Cristóbal. Crossed on the way in and rarely looked down into, which is where the depth of the work becomes obvious.
• The view down onto the cemetery. From El Morro's north wall, the domed chapel of the Santa María Magdalena de Pazzis cemetery with the Atlantic directly behind it.

How long each one really takes

Longer than the itineraries suggest, because both forts are places you slow down in rather than walk through. The guided walks that include a fort allot forty-five minutes to an hour, which covers the main levels comfortably and leaves the outworks for another visit.

If you are going in unguided, allow ninety minutes for each and you will not feel rushed. If you are going in on a guided walk, understand what you are buying: one four-star traveller note here makes the point: the guide gets the group through the gate, and the fort itself is then yours to walk at your own pace.

If you only have time for one

El Morro, and it is not close. It is the image of this city, the approach across the esplanade is the best arrival at any monument in the Caribbean, and it photographs in a way San Cristóbal does not. Take San Cristóbal when you have a second morning, or when you have somebody with you who wants to understand the engineering rather than see the view.

Tours that go inside a fort

Old San Juan and El Morro Castle Walking Tour

El Morro entry included, forty-five minutes inside, meeting a short walk from the piers.

From $54 per person

Check Availability

Old San Juan and San Cristobal Castle Walking Tour

A full hour inside Castillo San Cristóbal with the ticket already paid.

From $59 per person

Check Availability

Private Walking Tour of Old San Juan, and the forts

Your group alone, two hours, and the fort entrance fee inside the fare.

From $130 per person

Check Availability