Cuba - Lonely Planet [78]
Across the Malecón is the picturesque Castillo de San Salvador de la Punta, designed by the Italian military engineer Giovanni Bautista Antonelli and built between 1589 and 1600. During the colonial era a chain was stretched 250m to the castle of El Morro every night to close the harbor mouth to shipping. The castle’s museum (admission CUC$5; 10am-6pm Wed-Sun) was renovated in 2002 and displays artifacts from sunken Spanish treasure fleets, a collection of model ships and information on the slave trade.
On a large traffic island where Prado merges with the Malecón is a rather grand statue of General Máximo Gómez on the right-hand side. Gómez was a war hero from the Dominican Republic who fought tirelessly for Cuban independence in both the 1868 and 1895 conflicts against the Spanish. The impressive statue of him sitting atop a horse was created by Italian artist Aldo Gamba in 1935 and faces heroically out to sea.
Vedado
Vedado is Havana’s commercial hub and archetypal residential district, older than Playa but newer than Centro Habana. The first houses penetrated this formerly protected forest reserve in the 1860s, with the real growth spurt beginning in the 1920s and continuing until the 1950s.
Laid out in a near-perfect grid, Vedado has more of a North American feel than other parts of the Cuban capital, and its small clutch of rascacielos (skyscrapers) – which draw their inspiration from the art-deco giants of Miami and New York – are largely a product of Cuba’s 50-year dance with the US.
During the 1940s and ’50s, Vedado was a louche and tawdry place where Havana’s pre-revolutionary gambling party reached its heady climax. The Hotel Nacional once boasted a Las Vegas–style casino, the ritzy Hotel Riviera was the former stomping ground of influential mobster Meyer Lansky, while the now empty Hotel Capri was masterfully managed by Hollywood actor (and sometime mob associate) George Raft. Everything changed in January 1959 when Fidel Castro rolled into town with his army of scruffy bearded rebels in tow and set up shop on the 24th floor of the spanking new Havana Hilton hotel (promptly renamed Hotel Habana Libre).
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ASK A LOCAL
If you get a chance, be sure to wander around El Barrio Chino in Centro Habana. Pass through the giant pagoda-shaped arch behind the Capitolio on Calle Dragones and follow the crowds. Although there aren’t many Chinese living in the neighborhood these days, the neighborhood retains a distinct atmosphere and has lots of decent restaurants on Calle Cuchillo.
Felipe, Havana
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LENNON OUTSHINES LENIN
There are three Lenin statues in Havana. The first, sculpted in utilitarian grey granite, dominates leafy Parque Lenin near the airport. The second – a 3m-tall bronze face set in stone – sits atop a small hill in the ramshackle suburb of Regla. Both are of Russian communist icon Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (better known as Lenin) and were constructed during Cuba’s 30-year dalliance with the Soviet Union in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s.
But it is Havana’s third Lennon statue, a hyper-realistic study of the former Beatle, John, that graces out-of-the-way Parque Lennon (Map; Calles 15 & 17 btwn Calles 6 & 8) in suburban Vedado, which pulls in the lion’s share of the visitors.
Unveiled by Fidel Castro in December 2000 on the 20th anniversary of Lennon’s death, the monument marks one of the leader’s more dramatic policy U-turns. The Beatles’ music was actively discouraged in Cuba in the 1960s for being too ‘decadent.’ But following Lennon’s strong social activism and opposition to US involvement in the Vietnam War, he quickly became a hero among Cuban music fans, causing Castro to belatedly rebrand him as a ‘revolutionary.’
A magnet for souvenir hunters, Lennon’s 21st-century reincarnation has suffered the ignominy of having his glasses stolen so many times that a ‘guard’ has now been employed to keep a regular watch. Hiding