Cuba - Lonely Planet [70]
At the end of a short cul-de-sac, the Taller Experimental de Gráfica ( 862-0979; Callejón del Chorro No 6; admission free; 10am-4pm Mon-Fri) is Havana’s most cutting-edge art workshop, which offers the possibility of engraving classes (Click here).
PLAZA DE ARMAS
Havana’s oldest square was laid out in the early 1520s, soon after the city’s foundation, and was originally known as Plaza de Iglesia after a church – the Parroquial Mayor – that once stood on the site of the present-day Palacio de los Capitanes Generales. The name Plaza de Armas (Square of Arms) wasn’t adopted until the late 16th century, when the colonial governor, then housed in the Castillo de la Real Fuerza, used the site to conduct military exercises. The modern plaza, along with most of the buildings around it, dates from the late 1700s.
In the center of the square, which is lined with royal palms and enlivened by a daily (except Sundays) secondhand book market, is a marble statue of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes (1955), the man who set Cuba on the road to independence in 1868.
Filling the whole west side of the Plaza is the Palacio de los Capitanes Generales dating from the 1770s. Built on the site of Havana’s original church, this muscular baroque beauty has served many purposes over the years. From 1791 until 1898 it was the residence of the Spanish captains general. From 1899 until 1902, the US military governors were based here, and during the first two decades of the 20th century the building briefly became the presidential palace. Since 1968 it has been home to the Museo de la Ciudad ( 861-6130; Tacón No 1; unguided/guided CUC$3/4, camera CUC$2; 9am-6pm), one of Havana’s most comprehensive and interesting museums that wraps its way regally around a splendid central courtyard adorned with a white marble statue of Christopher Columbus (1862). Artifacts include period furniture, military uniforms and old-fashioned 19th-century horse carriages, while old photos vividly recreate events from Havana’s rich history such as the 1898 sinking of US battleship Maine in the harbor. It’s better to body-swerve the pushy attendants and wander around at your own pace.
Wedged into the square’s northwest corner is the Palacio del Segundo Cabo (O’Reilly No 4; admission CUC$1), constructed in 1772 as the headquarters of the Spanish vice-governor. After several reincarnations as a post office, palace of the Senate, Supreme Court, the National Academy of Arts and Letters, and the seat of the Cuban Geographical Society, the building is today a well-stocked bookstore Click here. Pop-art fans should take a look at the Sala Galería Raúl Martínez ( 9am-6pm Mon-Sat).
On the square’s seaward side is the Castillo de la Real Fuerza, the oldest existing fort in the Americas, built between 1558 and 1577 on the site of an earlier fort destroyed by French privateers in 1555. The west tower is crowned by a copy of a famous bronze weather vane called La Giraldilla; the original was cast in Havana in 1632 by Jerónimo Martínez Pinzón and is popularly believed to be of Doña Inés de Bobadilla, the wife of gold explorer Hernando de Soto. It is now kept in the Museo de la Ciudad, and the figure also appears on the Havana Club rum label. Imposing and indomitable, the castle is ringed by an impressive moat and today shelters the Museo de la Cerámica Artística Cubana ( 861-6130; admission CUC$2; 9am-6pm), displaying work by some of Cuba’s leading artists.
The tiny neoclassical Doric chapel on the east side of the Plaza, known as the Museo El Templete (admission CUC$2; 8:30am-6pm), was erected in 1828 at the point where Havana’s first Mass was held beneath a ceiba tree in November 1519. A similar ceiba tree has now replaced the original. Inside the chapel are three large paintings of the event by the French painter Jean Baptiste Vermay (1786–1833).
Adjacent to El Templete is the late-18th-century Palacio de los Condes de Santovenia, today the five-star, 27-room Hotel Santa