Old Havana

My walk for this Wednesday took place a few weeks ago.

Checking my gallery I realized that I had not shared with you this little foray through some of the streets of the Casco Histórico Habanero.

Havana is a beautiful city. Despite the years and neglect, it retains that mystery that encloses the old cities, full of history.

Places that have witnessed transcendent events. Buildings that have housed important personalities. Millions of people who have walked these cobblestone streets, leaving their footprints in the memory of this Havana of mine, of all of us.

The first thing I find as I pass by is "El Templete", a monument erected on the foundational site...or very close to it, of the Villa de San Cristóbal de La Habana in 1519.

Although it is not documented, it is believed that the first mass and town council was held in the shade of a ceiba tree similar to the one that grows in this place.

For more than 500 years the tradition of celebrating this event has been maintained. On the eve of November 16, thousands of people gather to walk around the ceiba tree three times asking for their most desired wishes.

A religious and cultural ceremony that reflects a tradition inherited for centuries. Here is a great article if you want to know more about this place and its history.

Right next to the Templete is the Hotel Santa Isabel. An old colonial mansion that was the residence of the Count of Santovenia and converted into a hotel by the American Luis Lay in 1867. Remodeled by the Office of the Historian of Havana in 1997 and put back into operation as a luxury hotel, it has hosted important personalities, Jimmy Carter, Jack Nicholson, Sting and Pedro Almodóvar, are some of them, the list goes on.

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From one side of the Plaza de Armas extends Obispo Street. In the image below you can see a pink building in the distance, it is the Ambos Mundos Hotel. At the beginning of the 30's of the last century, the writer Ernest Hemingway stayed in a small room on the fifth floor. In this room, now a museum, he wrote the first chapters of his novel "For Whom the Bell Tolls".

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I show you other streets of beautiful Old Havana, its architecture, its people...its life.

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Finally, this image. You could not miss in the streets of Havana a "polakito". This is not our yellow one, but they are family 🤣.

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_{The images and text are my own. I used DeepL for the translation because Spanish is my native language.}