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Beatiful squares in Havana: Plaza de Armas
The square on Old Havana’s eastern edge is a natural gateway to any walking tour. The plaza assembled the firepower that carried out the city’s principal task in the 16th century, protecting the Spanish treasure fleets coming in and out of the Caribbean. On the north side of the square, the massive Castillo de la Real Fuerza is the oldest surviving fortress in the Americas, rebuilt in 1558 after a French pirate attack. Notice, on its western tower, the Giraldilla, a landmark bronze weathervane popularly believed to represent the wife of Hernando de Soto, conquistador and early governor of Cuba—the original (17th-century) is in the municipal museum across the square. Now housing the Museo de Ia Cerámica Artistica Cubana, with a fine view of the harbour from an upstairs bar, the castle served as residence for the Span ish military commanders for 200 years. They moved to the grand Palacio de los Capitanes Generales on the west side of the square in 1791. After the last of the commanders left in 1898, the city’s finest piece of baroque architecture became, successively, head quarters for the US military governors, Cuba’s first presidential palace and the Havana Town Hall until it was finally transformed, in 1968, into the city museum (Museo de la Ciudad). With vivid oil paintings and memorabilia of war heroes, the museum traces the town’s history and the island’s campaigns for independence. The statue of Columbus in the court yard was erected in 1862. In the middle of the plaza stands a marble statue of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, a leader of the independence movement in the Ten Years’ War (1868—78). A second-hand book market is held here at the weekend. Two other impressive baroque edifices grace the plaza: on the northwest corner, the 18th-century Palacio del Segundo Cabo was the Spanish vice-governor’s residence and is now home to the Cuban Book Institute; the Palacio de los Condes de Santovenia has been converted into the luxury Hotel Santa Isabel. On the east side of the square is the early 19th-century neoclassical church of El Templete. Three paintings in the interior, by Jean Baptiste Vermay, a pupil of Jacques Louis David, commemorate the city’s earliest Catholic ceremonies, including the first Mass celebrated here in 1519.
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