The
Ponce Expressway, a modern highway running north to south,
links San Juan with Puerto Rico 's second largest city, Ponce
(pronounced Pon-tse).
The Ponce Museum of Art with over 1,000 paintings (including
Reubens and Gainsborough) and 400 sculptures contains perhaps the
best European art collection in the Caribbean.
The
heart of Ponce is the old plaza central. On one side, benches,
pruned India-laurel fig trees and statues surround the Cathedral of
Our Lady of Guadeloupe, a 17th century Spanish creole church topped
with rounded silver towers.
Casa
Armstrong Poventud,
a restored turn of the century neoclassic mansion, faces the plaza and now
serves as both a city museum and tourist information center.
Ponce's most famous sight is its fire station, the Parque
de Bombas, a red and black building built in 1883 for an architectural
fair.
Nearby
is the Tibes Indian Ceremonial Center, an Amerindian
site uncovered in 1974. A museum houses axe-heads, ceramic pots and
ceremonial idols. The site also includes seven rectangular ball courts
and two dance ground areas.
The
Hacienda Buena Vista is a restored 19th century coffee
and corn plantation seven miles north of Ponce. The original waterwheels,
crushers and turbines have been restored and the entire complex,
amazingly, is driven by a network of waterways. Guided tours
are offered of the two-story estate house, slave quarters and mills.
SAN
GERMAN, the oldest town after San Juan , retains its distinctive
colonial flavor with old white buildings and paved plazas. The Porta
Coeli Church, primarily a religious art museum, was built in 1606
and is another rare example of Spanish medieval architecture
still surviving in the Caribbean.
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