{"id":1366,"date":"2021-07-22T04:00:41","date_gmt":"2021-07-22T12:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/?p=1366"},"modified":"2021-07-19T17:13:14","modified_gmt":"2021-07-20T01:13:14","slug":"ponce-chronicles-2021-part-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/2021\/07\/22\/ponce-chronicles-2021-part-7\/","title":{"rendered":"Ponce Chronicles 2021, Part 7"},"content":{"rendered":"

Puerto Rico is called the Isle of Enchantment. There is, in fact, remarkable beauty to be found just a short walk down the hill from Casarboles, the “treehouse” built by my wife’s parents. The first thing you see is the Caribbean, just beyond the view of Ponce. From here, you can turn to your left to enter the grounds of the Japanese Gardens and Cruceta del Vig\u00eda.<\/p>\n

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We were treated to a private tour by the lovely activities director Luciris on a day the museums were closed (Allysen\u2019s dad was once very active on the board of directors). We first entered the Japanese Garden, which might seem a little incongruous in this land of Latin culture, but it\u2019s enchanting, just as promised. Here\u2019s a view across the grounds.<\/p>\n

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And a strange and beautiful tree. I don\u2019t know what kind.<\/p>\n

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Looking back at Cruceta del Vig\u00eda, which you can go up to the top in, but we didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

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Just around the bend in the road, you find the Castillo Serralles<\/a>, now a museum but once a home for some of the wealthy members of the Serralles family, owners of the Don Q rum distilleries. It (and the gardens) are popular locations for wedding and parties.<\/p>\n

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I wasn\u2019t at first very interested in seeing the inside of the Castillo (you\u2019ve seen one Hispanic mansion, you\u2019ve seen them all, right?). But was I wrong. The gardens adorning the grounds are breathtaking. Here\u2019s a sampling…<\/p>\n

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Ending with a monkey pod tree:<\/p>\n

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For a while, all of the carpentry and masonry and plumbing floated away. And then, I admit, after the tour, I went back to the house and started work on framing an opening for the second aircon (!) and the deck.<\/p>\n

Lexi and I walked around today, trying to map out all the circuit breakers\u2014and there are a lot. She\u2019s determined to create a reference for future sanity, and I say, You go, girl! Sadly, she flies back to Boston tomorrow, leaving just Allysen and me. Two more weeks to finish everything!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Puerto Rico is called the Isle of Enchantment. There is, in fact, remarkable beauty to be found just a short walk down the hill from Casarboles, the “treehouse” built by my wife’s parents. The first thing you see is the Caribbean, just beyond the view of Ponce. From here, you can turn to your left […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays","category-life-experiences"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1366"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1370,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1366\/revisions\/1370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}