Fort San Felipe del Morro

On our last evening of our trip to Puerto Rico, Peter and I made it over to Old San Juan. It was beautiful. The one place we really wanted to see was Fort San Felipe del Morro. Using this fort, the Spanish kept San Juan Bay safe from sea born threats. The project began in 1539, and it took about 400 years to get it to where it is today. It is amazing that they were able to construct such a building back before all of our modern technology.

Me at the entrance to the Fort.

Peter at the entrance to the fort.

Here is Peter sitting on top of a stack of cannon balls. There were a few cannons for us to see in the fort. Another thing I found interesting is that they built a ramp with the stairs to the top floor to push the cannons up and down. The stairs only had runs of about 5 steps before a little landing so the soldiers could rest as they transported these extremely heavy pieces of equipment.

Here am I next to a square box? This is actually an air vent so that the areas far below the top of the fort would have the air they needed. Such forethought. It's interesting how they had everything figured out way back then, and I get into the frame of mind that they never had anything before all this great technology came into play. People in the past were much smarter than I sometimes give them credit for.

The Port San Juan Light. A beautiful lighthouse that was added to the fort in 1843. Then it was replaced in 1908 by the US military. I believe they hit it during the Spanish-American war, which was the last time El Morro participated in an active fight.

The structure you see on top that does not fit with the rest of the structure was added during World War II by the US to protect against possible German attacks.

This is a view of part of the fort from one of the levels of the fort. You can see the ramp I was talking about earlier that they would use to move the cannons between levels. Off to the right side of the picture, there are several nooks and crannies the soldiers would go down in to fight with quite a bit of cover.

This is a view of Old San Juan from the fort.