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Nearly half a billion dollars have been spent preserving the colonial core of Puerto Rico's second city, and it's not only architecture buffs who declare the money well spent. The heart of Ponce dates from the late 17th century and has been declared a national treasure.

It consists of plazas and churches and highly decorative colonial homes, some glorious fountains and what may well be the funkiest fire station in the world. One of the reasons Ponce is so easy on the eye is that an early city regulation required that street corners be chamfered (curved).