Trails 2 Travel

Historic San Juan in a day Walking Tour Whether you have an extended stay in Puerto Rico, or less than a day from a cruise stop over, here’s my walkable itinerary for seeing the best of San Juan.Puerto Rico in one day! Experience history, art, shopping, and admire tons of cool city architecture. 

Day 9… our last day (and not even a full day at that) ended as any busy trip should- with a lazy Sunday morning stroll through a park. Not just any park though. Jingshan park.. which I hadn’t even known was a thing until we arrived in Beijing and our first tour guide mentioned it to us. Luckily our hotel was an easy 5 minute walk from the East gate of the park.

First and foremost: Let's start with the food  GROGGS Pinnacle Brewing Co.  Our first night in town we headed to the local brewery/ pub (because after ATVing all day, that seemed the natural progression). GROGGS while sounding medieval, turned out to be quite delicious. They had decent prices, and fantastic food. I got my usual bacon cheese burger (which I would put on top 10 burgers ever) and Katie's in-house smoked prime rib sandwich looked pretty fantastic as well. This place is open 7 days a week (though closes at 8 on Sunday) so if you're looking for a place to eat, particularly on Sunday, I recommend.

Alright saddle up now for the Universal Orlando Post! Probs won't be as long as the DisneyWorld post in light of there only being 2 parks... but still plenty to come. And NOTE: This was my FIRST time ever to a universal park! So there's probably other ways to go about it but I wanted my virgin experience to be perfect, and I can honestly say... it was pretty dang close. So to start: We paid the mucho money to stay ON property. With attempting to do 2 complete parks in a day, we wanted the extra "magic?" hour that universal does for Harry Potter world starting at 8 AM.  We stayed at the fabulous Royal Pacific which was a 5-10 min walk to the entrance of Islands of Adventure. Destination: Hogwarts. 

NYC Day 2: Brooklyn, Lower Manhattan, and Central Park Despite the late night Broadway show before, we were up early and determined to hit the rest of the list. So first up was Brooklyn. It took about 40 min to get to the Bagel Store on Bedford Ave between 2 subway lines and less than mile of walking. Rainbow bagel with funfetti smear: perfection.

NYC Day 1: Bright and early caught the train from Old Saybrook Connecticut ( free parking and closer to Stonington so less traffic concerns) to New Haven Union Station where we then transferred to go  on to Grand Central. (Above: a horrible lighting selfie in Grand Central... you're welcome)  Shoreline East train from O.S. to New Haven: $7.25 Metro North train from New Haven to Grand Central: 17.50

ok time for my last Connecticut post... the less historical visited sites and things to do. Starting with Mystic. As the weather decided to rain on my parade a large majority of the time, we decided to kill one evening by "happy hour hopping" in Mystic (one town over from Stonington) so first stop was:  1. The Oyster Club where they had oysters for 1/$1. Consequently I tried my 1st and last raw oyster. It was terrible but the cocktail sauce helped.  2. Pizzete were they have $1 slices of cheese or pepperoni pizza. You can go here if you're on a budget but still want some "Mystic pizza" haha 3. The last place we were able to squeeze in before 5:00, the Engine Room. Pretty delicious cheeseburgers for $5 and a very cool vibe. Probably my favorite of the 3 we went to. And of course happy hour being what it is, there were select beverages available for decent prices at each place also if you're looking for that.