
Happy 4th of July! It’s been nearly five years and hubby and I took our first kid-free long weekend getaway together. We hadn’t been to Puerto Rico since our first wedding anniversary so it was great to be back. A little mishap between my husband and our four-year-old left hubby with a broken nose, but we didn’t let that ruin our trip.
So anywho, we literally ate and drank our way around San Juan. Started with lunch at Raices, it’s a tourist trap but the mojitos and mofongo never disappoint. Decided to try something different and ordered the red snapper with creole sauce mofongo and like I said before it always lives up to expectations.
After lunch we enjoyed walking around downtown San Juan and taking in the sights. It hadn’t changed much from our last trip in 2015.
Dinner at Mario Pagán Restaurant was a nice treat. It was sophisticated and intimate, but not at all stuffy. After reading the reviews, I knew I had to try the lobster for my entree and chocolate soufflé for dessert. Both were phenomenal. They also had a nice selection of cocktails. Can’t forget to mention the service it was top notch.

We tried to keep the party going because we rarely have kid-free time, especially an entire weekend, so we wanted to make the most of it. Unfortunately, the Condado area wouldn’t let us be great. We tried a few places and one place said they were at capacity (looking at you STK – the place was empty) or you had to be a hotel guest. It was 10:30pm and we had given up and hopped into an Uber to head back to our hotel.
We ended up chatting with our driver, between him loudly singing Bad Bunny songs, and he told us we needed to check out La Placita, which is local market by day and party scene by night. Apparently, it’s the spot on Fridays so we told him to take us there. If you want to bar hop, people watch and spend the night dancing in the street, this is the place to go.
We found a restaurant that had seating outside, ordered more drinks and enjoyed taking in the sights. The people watching was A+, everyone from college kids to cougars in their club gear were out and about.
Needless to say we had a great day one in San Juan.