La Habana Vieja

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Havana was originally a walled city. If you look at maps of the city today, you can see how the city streets on the east end, at the end of the peninsula, fit into an overall shape of a diamond. That's the "entremuros" (within the walls) section. The extramuros section was built up later, which is now today Centro Habana, the most decayed part. These pictures are all of the old town, and a couple of the fortress on the other side of the channel.

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In the Museum of the City (formerly the Palace of the Captains-General). This was the flag of the Voluntarios, the lawless, loyalist paramilitaries who cooperated with Spanish troops during the wars of independence. In the old town. The bodegas have existed since the colonial period: a neighborhood general store. These are now the outlets at which people buy their rations of food and other basic goods.
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Here is the current schedule of rations. In the Plaza de San Francisco de Asís. Looking away from the Plaza back towards the bodega.
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In front is the church of San Francisco. Capitalism penetrating. Habana Vieja reminds me a lot of what I've seen of Cartagena, Colombia, the "city of balconies". (Both are UN World Heritage sites.) In the Plaza de la Catedral.
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The Cathedral. Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier described it as "music set in stone". The ramparts of San Carlos de la Cabaña. I think this probably used to be a moat. The famous rounded turrets of Spanish fortifications. Look at the space in between the "teeth" of the wall. You can see the space is shaped like a V with the narrow point on the inside of the wall, to give the defender a greater field of fire. You also get a kind of idea of how thick the walls are, if you can see the channel in between the teeth of the wall.

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This page created on a Macintosh using PhotoPage by John A. Vink.