• Dance | Eat | Dream

• What to know if you go

Nancy Stone/Chicago Tribune/MCT (ENLARGE)

Aida Velez (from left) Eugenio Adorno and Jose Luis Hernadez play dominos in San Juan.

Nancy Stone/Chicago Tribune/MCT (ENLARGE)

Sandra Justino and Ramon Ortero dance in the Plaza de Armas.

Nancy Stone/Chicago Tribune/MCT (ENLARGE)

Old San Juan is a lovely colonial city filled with good restaurants, beautiful colored houses, cobblestone streets and great salsa clubs.

1. Bailar: To dance

The blue moon twinkles down on steep, narrow streets and tiny alleys of faded-blue ballast stones brought by Spanish galleons centuries ago.

The warm, humid night with its breezes seems mystical.

And you are here to dance — to salsa — in Old San Juan.

You can do the same in the big, fancy hotels a few miles away in new San Juan. Or in the open-air roadside bars all over the island (drop money in the jukeboxes and out come the stars). Or with a boom box on the island's many palm-tree-fringed beaches that turn quiet and empty at night.

But you came to this museum-like collection of Crayola-colored houses and colonial-era streets for the majesty of a place that could have existed perfectly in a different time in Barcelona or Seville.

Pinched between the Atlantic Ocean and the Bay of San Juan, the fortress walls of this dense community only a few streets wide and long between Ft. San Cristobal and Castillo San Felipe el Morro have kept out invaders for centuries.

But Old San Juan's arms are wide-open for visitors, and you've come here because of the salsa. Born of African and Caribbean soul, then mingled with American jazz, here it is as pure and strong as it comes.

It is mid-week when most of the clubs are closed, so you have to search out the music. This bar — no, it is too small. And this one — this one too. Music pours out of a pool hall; it is superb — but it is not live music, and this is not a place to dance.

Then your luck changes. The Nuyorican Cafe has a salsa band. It is a small club — but not too small — on a lonely alley. It has dark walls, a tiny stage and, most importantly, large amplifiers. No cover. No minimum. Medalla Light, Puerto Rican beer, is only a few bucks.

Before the band's 11 p.m. beginning, there's an impromptu salsa class for the gringos and Latinos on hand who think they need help. You have danced before, but you are thrilled because the young instructor believes more in soul than steps, and makes you put your hand on your heart as he claps out the beat. This is a method salsa: You dance by what you feel.

The instructor asks: Do you feel the clave? The key to the beat?

You think you feel it. But you wonder what's coming next as the room quickly fills, the crowd swept up by the recorded music before the band has even begun. These people are masters of elegant turns and twists, and many have hips naturally meant to swivel just so much. They were born to salsa.

What are you going to do now?

The band slowly assembles on stage. Most of them; there are so many members that some have to play off to the side. They are young and old, men and women. They are the Puerto Rican mosaic of diverse origins, the shades of life's rainbow. They begin to practice.

One horn player, a handsome young muscular fellow in a tight black shirt, prefers to dance with good-looking women who wait up front of the room for dance partners. This could be a music video. Maybe it is.

Then the band begins, and the dance floor is jammed. You and your partner pump up your courage and enter the pack. You seem to doing OK. One song follows another almost without break, and though there are dancing stars all around, you are keeping up.

You are sweating. Your legs are tiring. The speakers are deafening. You miss a step. You can't catch the beat. You stop. You wonder. Can you do this? Damn. It didn't work out.

But then ... then you feel something. You are moving with your head and heart, not your feet. You are spinning, and the wood floor seems to bounce with the weight of the crowd. And you are part of it. Months and years of wondering whether you could do it just melt away. You move on.

Forward. Back. Spin. Spin. Spin. Swirl. Lean. Break. Clutch.

Now you can answer the dance instructor with an honest yes. Yes, you feel it. Sabes? You know?

If you know the music you can never feel it enough.

2. Comer: To eat

Tormenting, delicious-looking pastries fill the rows in the front window. You smile at the cashier and take a seat in a booth under one of the massive black-and-white photographs of Old San Juan.

You shouldn't dawdle or break with traditions, even if you are a newcomer.

You come to La Bombonera like the little old men who sidle up to the counter all day long for their regular pastries and coffees, like the busy business people who get a coffee and quickly move on, like the schmoozers who kill time talking island politics, like other curious tourists who are stuck staring in the window and ultimately like the couples who seem like they have been out all night or who would like to seem to have been.

You come here because La Bombonera has been a tradition for more than a hundred years, a repository of memories and dreams about simple and inexpensive Puerto Rican dishes. Modernity has intruded over the years, but only somewhat. The coffee machine is a Rube Goldberg contraption that somehow brews great cafe con leche. If you order orange juice, a man behind the counter grabs some oranges and squeezes them in an equally ancient machine.

If you are a loyalist, you also will immediately order a Mallorca, which is a Danish that takes its heritage from Spain but its identity from here. The bun is split, doused with butter in its middle, griddled on another ancient-looking machine and then covered with white sugar. Make believe your pants or skirt fit loosely, and you can have two or as many as you like.

Finding good eats in Old San Juan is not an issue. The problem is picking your favorites. If you seek another version of the Mallorca, for example, you can go for breakfast to a place appropriately called Cafeteria Mallorca. Though this place is only just more than four decades old, it offers the same ambience of being in a historical shrine. It does not, however, match the food quality of La Bombonera.

Come lunch, there are any number of options for traditional and inexpensive Puerto Rican food. Spanglish Cafe, a relatively new popular hole-in-the-wall joint with just a few tables, offers the chance to learn inexpensively about local dishes. A daily special (shrimp in garlic sauce this day) goes for $10.95, side dishes included.

La Mallorquina, whose menu is traditional Puerto Rican and Spanish, is neither inexpensive nor a recent arrival. It opened its doors in 1848, and is considered the island's longest-running restaurant.

Massive dark-wood mirrors cover the tall, time-worn, stucco-colored walls as large fans swirl above and delicate chandeliers spread light in the room. It is wise to leave space for the papaya rings in syrup with native cheese (dulce de papaya con queso do pais; $4) for dessert.

While La Mallorquina is about tradition, the Parrot Club broadcasts itself as a new chic place to dine as well as to catch live Latin jazz several nights a week. Its menu is nuevo Latino, which has endeared itself to locals and tourists who nightly fill a long, attractive room. The offerings are large, so an appetizer of baby back ribs barbecued with island spices ($12) is almost enough for a meal for those not thinking of wobbling away. Though some dishes are visually exciting, they miss their taste targets, however.

The same company has created several similarly stylish restaurants within walking distance, including Dragonfly, a Latin-Asian restaurant, and Aguaviva, which specializes in Latin seafood.

But if you are stuck on tradition, renew your roots at sunrise at La Bombonera, which doesn't disappoint, and doesn't change. Just watch your Mallorca intake, and make sure to claim a booth where you can watch life being lived.

3. Sonar: To dream

Bright, bright sunshine beckons, but instead you are lingering in history's beguiling embrace.

You are in no hurry to rush out of the lush green courtyard after yet another cafe con leche for the morning. Strong, but smooth island coffee. No better way to start the day.

Then you dawdle a little longer in the thick-walled hotel room with heavy dark wooden shutters, large overhead beams, delicate tiles, a small balcony and wrought-iron handcrafts throughout.

You've suffered from this urge to malinger before. It usually lasts only a lifetime. Istanbul. Jerusalem. Aswan. Luxor. Barcelona. Toledo. Ancient places with hotels that toss you backward into a wonderfully comfortable repose.

Old San Juan's time-weary cobblestone streets have already set up the mood, so upon entering the El Convento Hotel, the time travel is locked into place.

Away from the heat, and growing noise of the day, you surrender to the ambience of the cloister that this elegant hotel once was and still is.

More than three and a half centuries ago it was the Monastery of Our Lady Carmen of San Jose, a Carmelite convent.

It flourished for eons as a multi-tiered retreat for nuns housed in small cells that looked out on a massive courtyard. The Plaza of the Nuns, a small park, still sits in front of the building.

But time and humanity wore away at the building, and at the start of the 20th century it began a long, humbling decline into ruin until it was restored in the late 1950s by a wealthy visionary from the mainland, Robert Frederic Woolworth, of the Woolworth dime-store fame.

A classy hotel that looked like it belonged in the Spanish Colonial Caribbean was born.

But the hotel's destiny fluttered uncertainly as it changed hands a number of times before being fixed up anew less than a decade ago.

One floor above the open air patio today is El Picoteo, a tapas and paella restaurant with a long bar and seating scattered in two large open areas.

Try the other tapas eateries in Old San Juan, but come back here to see how it should be done.

On a large terrace where you can look out — the 4 ?-century-old Catedral de San Juan in one direction and the bay in the other direction — there is an hour-long complimentary serving of wine, cheese and fruits around sunset.

Early one afternoon you wander out down the streets toward Morro Castle and the slew of museums and galleries that are only a few streets away.

Suddenly you are caught in a torrential downpour with no place to hide, so you lean against a wall of the old city, thanking the thick vegetation above that gives some shelter just the way the greenery does in the rain forest.

As the rain relents slightly, you race back to the hotel, leaping over streams of water racing down the hill towards the bay. You are soaked from the warm rain.

You plop down in a chair in the patio, listening to the beat of the rain, and music pouring over loudspeakers. It is a soulful piece played by Pablo Casals, the Spanish cellist, who sought refuge in San Juan from life in Spain under Franco's Fascism. The house where he lived is a tiny museum only a few blocks away.

You close your eyes and listen to the elegant concert of the falling water and the master cello player, and wonder if you will have the strength or desire to go out again soon. You know this feeling will pass. But not now.

IF YOU GO

NIGHTLIFE

Most nights the offerings at the Nuyorican Cafe vary — salsa, poetry, hip-hop, bomba, jazz, Latin jazz — so call ahead (787-977-1276). Some nights there are dance classes if you ask. The formal address is 312 Calle Sebastian, but the entrance is on El Callejon (alley) de la Capilla, between Fortaleza and San Sebastian. No cover. Cheap eats. Cheap beer. If you want to watch the dancers, arrive early. It gets crowded.

Rumba (152 San Sebastian; 787-725-4407) is also a place to find your salsa roots. It is open Wednesday through Sunday from 11 p.m. on. Cafe Bohemio, a street-side Latino restaurant at hotel El Convento (100 Calle Cristo; 787-723-9200), turns into a Latin jazz club on Thursdays. But there are also places where salsa is not the king. The Noise (203 Calle Tanca; 787-724-3426) will raise your reggaeton pulse, and the Club Lazer (251 Calle Cruz; 787-725-7581) will bring it even higher.

Tiny hole-in-the wall bars are everywhere, and the upper end of Calle San Sebastian has a bunch of popular bars. Remember, most nightspots start late.

Plaza Darsena has free music and performances from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. on Saturdays.

RESTAURANTS

Savor breakfast at La Bombonera (259 Calle San Francisco; 787-722-0658) — and be sure to order a Mallorca. Cafeteria Mallorca (300 Calle San Francisco; 787-722-5205) is a Mallorca runner-up. Cafe Amadeus (106 Calle San Sebastian; 787-722-8635) is a small, romantic restaurant for lunch and dinner just off Plaza San Jose that draws locals and tourists; its new menu is largely Puerto Rican-inspired. Spanglish Cafe (105 Calle Cruz; 787-722-2424) is an inexpensive choice for good Puerto Rican cooking.

If you are tired and hot, take a break at Cafe Berlin (407 San Francisco; 787-722-5205), a mostly vegetarian bar and restaurant that faces Plaza Colon. Among the cluster of upscale restaurants near the entrance to Old San Juan is the hip Parrot Club (363 Calle Fortaleza; 787-725-7370) with large portions, and trendy nuevo Latino cooking. Its equally stylish corporate partners are Dragonfly (364 Calle Fortaleza; 787-977-3886), for Latin-Asian cooking, and Aguaviva (364 Calle Fortaleza; 787-722-0665), for Latin seafood. They should offer historical plays at La Mallorquina (207 Calle San Justo; 787-722-3261) looks like an antique Caribbean restaurant. Look, buy a rum drink and watch the fans turn.

Runner-up for ambience goes to El Picoteo (100 Calle Cristo; 787-723-9621), a very fine tapas restaurant perched on the second floor of the hotel El Convento (see below), so that some tables sit in the heart of the ancient convent's courtyard. If it too hot or rainy or you are just pooped, you should sit and nurse some drinks here.

Our soul craves Latino food in Old San Juan, but you can also find Italian, Mexican, Greek, Caribbean, French, Indian and global eclectic.

HOTELS

El Convento Hotel (100 Calle Cristo; 787-723-9020 or 800-468-2779; www.elconvento.com) is the top of the line and worth the price ($155-$285).

Equally classy is the Gallery Inn (204-206 Norzagaray; 787-722-1808; www.thegalleryinn.com). The 300-year-old, 22-room building feels like an artist's retreat — and it is, with art studios and a music room. Each room is full of antiques, and no one resembles another. Looking out from Old San Juan's North Wall, the ocean view is stunning. Rooms: $175-$270.

Hotel Milano (307 Fortaleza; 787-729-9050; www.hotelmilano pr.com) is a slightly lower-priced choice in the thick of things on the busiest street. But it could do with a little more charm and friendlier service for its prices ($135-$165). Its top-floor restaurant offers a view of the harbor and Old San Juan's helter-skelter rooftops.

Facing the much modernized waterfront is the Sheraton Old San Juan Hotel and Casino (100 Calle Brumbaugh; 787-721-5100), with a small-sized casino just large enough to dream of being a winner. Rooms: $235-$735.

HANDICAP ACCESSIBILITY

All facilities in Puerto Rico are required to meet ADA requirements, including public buses, buildings and sidewalks, according to the Puerto Rico Tourism Co. Most hotels have wheelchair access and rooms for the handicapped.

INFORMATION

Contact Puerto Rico Tourism: www.gotopuertorico.com. In Old San Juan, the main information center — La Casita — is located west of Pier 1 on the waterfront where the cruise ships dock and is open daily (787-722-1709).