Walking Havana Day 2

Walking Havana, Day 2
Wednesday 4 January 2012

Feeding pigeons in Plaza San Francisco

All we can see is a long line of tour buses parked next to the Malecón next to a big stone fort, the Castilla (castle) de la Real Fuerza. It has taken us about 20 minutes to walk from our Casa Particular in Central Havana to visit Habana Vieja (old Havana). Luckily it is a large area and the crowds of tourist soon disperse. We soon find out why so many people visit this area.

There are four main plazas in the area and we have already found one, Plaza de la Catedral, full of Cuban baroque buildings, from 1770s, all lovingly restored. There are people in costume roaming the plaza, searching for tourists willing to pay a small amount to pose with an historical character. Other tourists are enjoying a mid-morning coffee break in one of several outdoor restaurants. The namesake of the plaza, the Catedral de San Cristóbal de la Habana, is suitably impressive, both outside and inside.

The Castilla (castle) de la Real Fuerza, in the shape of a four point star and surrounded by a wide moat, is the oldest existing fort in the Americas, built 1558-1577. On top of a cupola atop one of the towers is La Girardilla, a bronze weather vane in the form of a woman, said to be the wife of a gold explorer. We decide the Museo de Navegación, inside the fort, is worth a visit. There are gold, silver and jewels found during scuba explorations in 1980. There are models of Spanish ships, including the three in Christopher Columbus’s fleet, the Nina, the Pinto, and the Santa Maria, which reached Cuban shores in 1498. There is even a model of the Canadian schooner, the Bluenose, which made a trip to Cuba several years ago. My favourite was a huge scale model of the Santissima Trinidad, with figurines depicting life on a galleon.

Just across from the Castilla was the Plaza des Armas, Havana’s oldest square, under its original name of Plaza de Iglesia (church) dates from the early 1520s. The name changed in the late 16th C when the current governor held military exercises on the plaza. Used book stalls line at least two sides of the plaza. Another tourist said Habana Vieja reminded them of Paris and this plaza with the book stalls certainly does. We liked the Museo el Templete, a tiny neo-classical chapel where first mass was held under a ceiba tree in 1519.

We continued south, past museums, shops and restaurants, stopping to see a group of Flamenco musicians and dancers perform in one of the restaurants. Plaza San Francisco, facing the harbour, was first a market in the 1500s. The construction of the Iglesia y Monasterio de San Fransisco de Asis in 1608, and rebuilt in Baroque style in 18th C, changed the name and character of the plaza. Today the church is both a concert hall, offering classical music and a Museum of Religious Art. Outside the church beneath a statue of St Francis holding a child, was a young woman busker, dressed in red, sitting amidst a flock of pigeons, attracted by the bread thrown into the air by her accomplish as a photographer snapped pictures. On another side of the church was a bronze sculpture of El Caballero de Paris, a street person in the 1950s who engaged passers-by in philosophical discussions. Everyone, including myself, likes to pose with him for a photo. The most notable feature in the plaza is the white marble Fuente de los Leones (Fountain of Lions), carved by an Italian artist in 1836.

At last we reached the fourth Plaza Vieja, laid out in 1559 and originally called Plaza Nueva (New Square). It was used for military exercises and an openair market. During Batista’s presidency the plaza was destroyed to build an underground parking lot. When the parking lot was demolished in 1996, the ruins of an ancient aquaduct were found. Many of the plaza building had signs in front displaying photos of what the buildings looked like prior to 1996 when a massive renovation project transformed the ruined buildings into a beautiful plaza.

It was lunch time and the Café Lamparilla, on a nearby street of the same name, beckoned. It lived up to its reputation with good food, inexpensive food, and music provided by a quartet of a guitarist, a woman playing a flute and percussionists. The Cuban music was so good I bought their CD.

The way back to our Casa Particular was along Calle Mercaderes (Merchant’s Street). This cobbled, pedestrian way was extensively restored to 18-th C splendour. Besides more museums, shops, restaurants, murals on walls depicting colonial artists and literary people kept our interest. We stopped into the gallery and sculpture garden, complete with a brace of peacocks, started by Carmen Mantillo, a patron of the arts.

The stone benches along the Paseo de Marti gave us a chance to rest on our way home and to watch kids on skateboards perform tricks for the audience of their friends while an impromptu band entertained older Habaneros.

Cubans are used to line-ups but we get tired of them very quickly. Los Nardos restaurant, across from the National Capital building, is very popular and doesn’t take reservations. We had passed the restaurant the previous afternoon and there were line-ups even at 3 PM. We decided to give it a try for what we considered an early dinner, by Cuban standards, at 6 PM. It took us an hour in line to get into the restaurant and sit at a table. The interior, boasting lots of dark, carved wood, was a lot fancier than we had imagined, given their reputation for inexpensive meals. The food wasn’t gourmet, but the quantities were large and it fit the bill. A pitcher of Sangria helped us to get over the long wait. We did enjoy the meal but I doubt we would brave that long a wait again.