Havana Travel Guide

If you want to find out a little more about the history of Havana by visiting its museums and places of historical interest, you should start in the historical heart of Old Havana. Here you will find a web of narrow streets stretching from the sea to the modern part of the city. The port was originally known as Carenas, until 1519 when the Villa de San Cristóbal, founded to the south by Diego Velásquez in 1514, was moved to the present site of Havana and subsequently given its present name. This story is told on the walls of the Templete, a tiny temple on one side of the Plaza de Armas.

The Plaza de las Armas is surrounded by important palaces and colonial buildings, including the magnificent Palacio del Segundo Cabo and the Palacio de los Capitanes Generales, now a museum on the only street in the city's only street still paved in wood. In the center of the square there is a statue of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes. You will also notice a curious and unique establishment, La Casa del Agua, where fresh water is sold.

Nearby is the Cathedral, remarkable for its asymmetric design. Its towers are of different sizes, but the biggest surprise is the gothic architecture inside. Its construction was began by the Jesuits, who had to leave it unfinished when they were expelled from the Spanish territories in the mid-18th century. The original baroque was left untouched for many decades, forming the basis for the Cathedral we see today.

Constant attacks by pirates forced the Spaniards to protect their city. To one side of the Templete, on the edge of the sea, you will find the Castillo de la Real Fuerza, one of the many fortifications which made Havana one of the best defended cities of the Old World. A drawbridge leads inside the castle, which is now a Weapons Museum and also has a room for exhibitions of work by local artists. On the top floor, on a terrace overlooking the bay, there is a Spanish restaurant. The castle is crowned by a watch tower, La Giraldilla, which is a replica of the Giralda in Seville, and a weather vane of great historical significance.

Not far from here you will come to another fort, Castillo San Salvador de la Punta, and further along the Malecón, another, the Chorrera Tower, named after the river whose mouth it guards, now known as the Almendares. Across the bay, you will see two more fortresses, the Castillo de los Tres Reyes del Morro (El) and San Carlos de La Cabaña. On your way you will notice remains of the old city wall, the Muralla de La Habana (La), which was demolished at the beginning of the 20th century due to the rapid expansion of the city. A cannon shot used to be fired at nine o'clock every evening from San Carlos de la Cabaña to announce that the city gates were closing. This has remained a tradition in Havana, still carried out every day by soldiers dressed in 18th century Spanish uniforms.

If you now walk away from the bay, you will come to Centro Havana. Sights worth visiting in this area include the Capitolio Nacional (El), a replica of the Capitol building in Washington which now houses the Cuban Academy of the Sciences. There is also the Museum of Fine Arts and next to it, the Yacht Granma (which played a key role in the Cuban Revolution) and the Museum of the Revolution, housed in the former Presidential Palace.

To continue the tour, we recommend a walk along the Malecón (El) towards the Vedado area, where you will find the Plaza de la Revolución and the monument to Monumento a Jose Martí, which is 142 meters high. This is where the country's mass rallies are held. Nearby is the Teatro Nacional de Cuba, a good example of modern Cuban architecture and home to the National Theatre.

If you like architecture, a visit to the Cementerio Cristóbal Colón, with its wonderful sculptures and marble-work, will be an unforgettable experience. If you like tropical fruit ice-creams then you might want to stop at the Coppelia ice-cream parlor, which is near Havana University.

After this tour, visitors should have a good idea of what the city is like, as well as what it used to be like many years ago. Enjoy!2008-08-02T07:29:22.000 154