What's happening in San Juan this week?

Old San Juan follows the cruise calendar more than any events calendar. On most ship days the piers along Calle La Marina are full by 8am, and by 11am Calle Fortaleza and Calle del Cristo are thick with lanyards and sunburned shoulders. A 9am start sidesteps most of that: be at the Castillo San Felipe del Morro gate when the National Park Service opens it. At that hour the lawn smells of cut grass and salt spray, and the kite flyers haven't arrived yet. One San Juan National Historic Site ticket has cost about $10 and covers El Morro and Castillo San Cristóbal for 24 hours, so you can save San Cristóbal for the next morning. From the El Morro ramparts you look down on Santa María Magdalena de Pazzis Cemetery, with its white marble tombs set against the Atlantic. On Saturday and Sunday afternoons, San Juan families fill the El Morro esplanade with kites, which makes it the best people-watching in the walled city and the worst time for clean photos.

After dark, San Juan is busiest from Thursday to Saturday. By day, La Placita de Santurce is a produce market, but from about 6pm on Thursday and Friday the square around the 1910 market hall fills with salsa from bar speakers and the smell of garlic and fried pork. If menus make you nervous, start with mofongo, mashed fried green plantain with garlic pressed into a dome and often stuffed with shrimp or skirt steak. A cold Medalla, the island's light lager, tends to cost $3 to $5 there. Choose Thursday if you don't like crowds, because Friday after 10pm is shoulder to shoulder, loud and sticky underfoot. In Old San Juan, Calle San Sebastián stays open later, with bar doors open past 2am on Saturday. From Monday to Wednesday both areas are quiet, and several Placita kitchens close early.

Sunday is beach day in San Juan, and by 11am local families with coolers and reggaetón have claimed Ocean Park and the Isla Verde strip; come on a Tuesday and you might share the sand with a few joggers. East of Luis Muñoz Marín airport, the Piñones kiosks in Loíza fry alcapurrias (taro fritters filled with crab or beef) and bacalaítos (crisp salt-cod fritters) all weekend, though several stalls tend to stay shut from Monday to Wednesday. Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico in Santurce keeps a Wednesday-to-Sunday schedule, which makes Monday and Tuesday the better days for the forts and the Cathedral of San Juan Bautista, where Juan Ponce de León is buried. On Saturday mornings, the Mercado Agrícola Natural sets up in Old San Juan from about 9am to 1pm, selling Puerto Rican coffee, honey and soursop.

The Atlantic hurricane season is still open this week, and a typical day starts clear and sticky before a 20-minute downpour arrives somewhere after 2pm, warm as bathwater, leaving the blue cobblestones steaming. On Monday afternoon the temperature reached 28.4°C with 81% humidity, and it felt like 33.5°C. Walk before 11am and after 4pm, and check the National Hurricane Center outlook before booking boat trips to Icacos or Culebra. Puerto Rico stays on Atlantic Standard Time all year and never changes its clocks: San Juan matches New York while US daylight saving time runs, and sits one hour ahead once the mainland falls back. Sunset is a little after 6pm this week, and Paseo de la Princesa, facing the Bahía de San Juan, is the best place to watch it.