This small neo-classical style construction was built in the second half of the 18th Century. It is located in Plaza de Armas on the site where the first public mass was celebrated and also the site of the first town council of the nascent town of San Cristóbal de La Habana. The Templete resembles a Doric temple and houses three commemorative canvasses by the famous French painter Juan Bautista Vermey. One of the walls exhibits the plate that declares Old Havana a World Heritage Site.Place: Ciudad de La Habana
The San Francisco de Asís Church and Convent is the current scenario of the richest cultural traditions. As the City Historian has said: “to collect, restore, conserve and exhibit are the classic principles that govern there.... so as to save from the offenses of time the endangered heritage.” The construction of the current set dates from 1738, and it replaced a more modest one completed in 1591. Since it was closed to worship in 1841, the building has seen the most diverse uses. After a restoration that brought back its original values in the nineties, the architectural group has harbored, also, a concert hall and the Holy, Sacred and Religious Art museums.
The oldest space of the city surrounded by the most important political, military, religious and civil buildings of the town: la Real Casa de Correos (1772-90), Palacio del Segundo Cabo and Palacio de los Capitanes Generales (1776-91). In 1955, a statue of the Father of the Homeland, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, stands in the center of the square.
The Cannon Blast ceremony is one of the oldest and attractive traditions of Havana. In colonial days, the shots signalled the closing and opening of the gates of the walled city and the rising of the chain across the entrance to the harbour. The tradition of firing a cannon every night at 9:00 pm was kept even after the wall was torn down and is still used for checking your watch.
Located in the former Presidential Palace, the museum exhibits a large number of objects of extraordinary historical importance related to the struggle for independence of the Cuban people. The Granma memorial is situated in the surrounding area and exhibits the boat, protected by a glass case, that Fidel Castro and 82 revolutionaries used to return to Cuba from exile in Mexico and thus initiated the final struggle for the independence of Cuba.
The construction of the largest of all the Spanish military fortresses concluded in 1774 and its presence exerted a deterring effect on the enemies of the country. It occupies an area of 10 hectares and consists of bulwarks, barracks, moats, covered roads, squares and warehouses. On January 3, 1959, Commander Ernesto Che Guevara militarily seized the fortress and established his headquarters there, which is now a museum that exhibits personal documents and valuable testimonies of the Heroic Guerrilla. Every evening the Cannon is Blast Ceremony is held in one of its squares at 9:00 pm.
