Porta Coeli Museum, San Germán

The Dominican Order built the Convent of Porta Coeli at the crest of a hill in San Germán in 1609; the chapel that stands today dates to 1692. Earthquakes, abandonment, and time took the convent — only a ruined wall remains. In 1960, the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture restored the surviving church and established it as the island's first religious art museum, housing paintings, wooden carvings, Baroque-style altarpieces, and religious figures of Puerto Rican and Mexican origin. It is, by any honest measure, one of the oldest surviving church structures in the Western Hemisphere.