Today was all about exploring Havana on our own. The route we have planned is pretty much the same as the one we did yesterday but in a different order. We started by walking down to Cathedral Square where we had another look at the Cathedral, construction began in 1748 by Jesuit priests, but they were expelled from Cuba so the church was finished by the Franciscans in 1777. The city’s first aqueduct (and the first Spanish aqueduct in the new world) reached the square. Water was channeled from the Almendares river 7 miles away. The Zanja Real was built to provide water to ships docking in the harbour as well as local residents, this was the first service industry in Cuba, all you had to do was fill up buckets of water! The Real is no longer visible but there should be a 16th century plaque that marks the spot, we were told about this yesterday but didn’t see the plaque! You can possibly go up the tower but we realised that all you would see were other buildings and we probably had a better view from the restaurant yesterday so we didn’t bother. We had another look round the buildings that make up the square then set off in search of the Castillo de la Real Fuerza. We found what we thought was the castle but it actually turned out to be the police station, we did try to go in and have a look but they wouldn’t let us! However between our broken Spanish and their as broken English we managed to establish the direction of the fort and set off again. This is actually a UNESCO world heritage site and is considered to be the oldest stone fort in the Americans, it was built between 1558 and 1577 but was abandoned as a fort after quite a short period of time because of its poor strategic position, we decided that this is probably because there is much higher ground the other side of the river and this is where the English attacked the city from as they could put canons on top of the cliff and fire them at the city, after this war was over the Cuban’s built a fort on the other side on higher ground. This fort was used as the home of governors and military commanders. Before we came to Cuba there had been a lot of notes on various travel forums suggesting that the room attendants will expect tips either for taking your photo for you or in some cases just letting you in the room! This turned out to be true, we were encouraged to take photos and they made suggestions of where we should stand and what we should take photos of which resulted in a request for a ‘gift’ luckily we had some small notes and once money had changed hands we were left on our own which was good. We climbed to the top of the battlements which gave a nice view of the port and found a room that had a lot of the artefacts that they have found in the bay from various ships that have gone down, a lot of the things are from Spanish galleons but others seemed to be more recent as there were some rather nice figures and ornaments that were obviously mass produced for sale that seem to have gone down on a cargo ship. After having a good look round we went back down and from here we walked around the Plaza de Armas, this was built in the 1600s to replace the old Plaza Mayor, the core of Havanas religious, administrative and military life. Up until the mid 1700s it was used for military exercises, after the transformation between 1771 and 1838 it became a favourite with rich Havana citizens and popular as an area for carriage rides. It is also home to El Templete which is said to be the place where Havana was founded and also the site of the first mass in Cuba, we walked round the square and on the other side is the Palacio de los Capitanes Generales. This was built between 1776 and 1791. It was used by the Cuban Government as offices and is now a museum. It wasn’t clear if you could go in or not but after a group tour went in I managed to attract the attention of someone who took our money and let us in. We walked round the ground floor which had horse drawn carriages that looked in lovely condition although we couldn’t get that close, then we went up a magnificent stair case to the top floor. This had a number of rooms some of which had displays in them, others were laid out as they would have been when it was in use. We looked at the Throne Room which was originally built for Spanish Monarch’s and the Salon de los Espejos which is where the end of Spanish Rule was proclaimed in 1899 after the Independence war and finally had a look over the gallery which looks over the court yard, the only problem was that both the guide book and our guide had said it was worth looking at the Hall of Flags which contains objects from the Independence wars, the only problem was that we couldn’t find this hall. We climbed to what felt like a half floor but was actually another floor but was slightly hidden away from the main structure of the court yard and although we found an art gallery and what seemed to be a selection of Tomb stones from various figures of the revolution we still didn’t find the hall of flags. Finally we managed to ask someone who pointed us back to the top floor and a closed door which once we opened it did indeed contain flags and objects form the Independence wars, although to be honest not as many as I expected. Now we understand the system we managed to avoid the room attendants either explaining things to us or taking photos for us which will make the whole experience of going round museums a lot cheaper so once we had finished looking round we left and set off in search of some lunch. I had marked a place on the walk we could try but we couldn’t actually find it so we went into what was probably a government run restaurant and had a couple of beers and some tapas which to be honest were nice and just what we needed at this stage. Refreshed, we continued our walk which took us back to Plaza de San Francisco which has the massive church on one side and the port entrance on the other. As we had a bit more time to look round today we realised that the building directly opposite the Port Entrance is actually the customs house, although it is currently being refurbished and the former stock exchange. The Basilica Menor de San Francisco de Asisi which is what gives the square its name was built between 1580 – 91 and outside is a fountain that is said to be modelled on the one in Alhambra Granada. We walked from here back to Plaza Vieja or New Square which was laid out in 1559 but replaced the other square on this spot! It is the one where the children were playing yesterday but also home to a building that contains a private coffee house and a government run coffee house side by side. The private one had a number of customers and the government one was empty but it was roasting coffee beans which filled the whole square with a wonderful smell of fresh coffee. We decided to head back to our hotel up the pedestrian street which gave us time to look at the buildings and also take a sneak peak inside where possible. We stopped on route for an ice cream which was actually rather nice then went back to the room to have a relax before an equally interesting day tomorrow.
