San Germán

San Germán is the second oldest town in Puerto Rico and the one that kept its colonial street plan intact, laid out across a low ridge in the southwest hills. Its historic district holds more than a hundred protected buildings around two linked plazas. On the upper square stands Porta Coeli, a small stone and masonry chapel of the Dominican order that counts among the oldest surviving church buildings anywhere in the Americas and now holds a collection of religious art. The rest of the town is a mix of criollo timber houses, neoclassical facades and Victorian verandas.