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Plaza de Armas

Plaza de Armas is the oldest and liveliest square in Havana.

One of its most famous features is the market of collectibles and used books held every day except Sunday, under the palm trees and in the shaded areas surrounding the central park.

The used book market is the largest in the city, where you can find the speeches of Fidel Castro or the essays of Che Guevara, as well as collectible books of pre-revolutionary literature and even some volumes from the colonial era.

Dating back to 1520, just a few years after the founding of the Cuban capital, the park and the buildings surrounding it today were built at the end of the 18th century.

It was from this square, starting in the second half of the 16th century, that the present-day city of Havana began to take shape.

Once Plaza de Armas was the heart of political life in Havana and features some splendid examples of colonial architecture.

In colonial times, the square was the site of military parades, musical concerts, and formal evening strolls, and it maintained its political and administrative role until the mid-20th century.

It is surrounded by buildings spanning four centuries.

First among them is the Palacio de los Capitanes Generales, located on the western side of the square, seat of the Spanish government from 1791 until the end of the Spanish-American War of 1898. The palace currently houses the Museo de la Ciudad.

In the center of the square stands the white marble statue of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, initiator of the wars of independence and father of the homeland.

Surrounded by palm trees and ceiba trees, the statue was made by Cuban artist Sergio López Mesa and replaced a statue of Spanish King Fernando VII, installed in 1834, when Miguel Tacón commissioned a renovation that shaped the square we see today.

Nearby we find the Castillo de la Real Fuerza, one of the oldest European fortresses in the Americas (1558-1577), which proved ineffective from a defensive standpoint due to its position too far inside the bay.

In 1634, the Giraldilla was raised on the watchtower, a weather vane with the silhouette of a woman that quickly became the symbol of the city.

The female silhouette represents the lady Isabel de Bobadilla, who waited for hours on the palace tower for the return of her husband, governor of Cuba during the Spanish period.

Today the castle houses the National Museum of Artistic Ceramics.

It was the residence of governors, military officers, and high-ranking personalities for 200 years until the Palacio del Segundo Cabo was built directly opposite the castle, which today houses the Cuban Book Institute.

The military grandeur of this fort, with walls 6 meters thick, was not enough to prevent the invasion of Havana by the English in 1762.

At the southwest corner of the square we find La Mina, a 17th-century school for orphan girls, now turned into a famous bar-restaurant.

Next to the Castillo stands the oldest neoclassical palace in Havana, El Templete.

El Templete is located on the spot where, under a legendary ceiba tree, Havana was founded on November 16, 1519, with the celebration of the first mass and the first city council, which are reproduced in the paintings by French painter Vermay and kept inside the chapel.

Every year, on the night between November 15 and 16, hundreds of Cubans perform the propitiatory ritual of walking three times around the ceiba of El Templete to have their wishes granted.

The 20th-century palace south of the square houses the Museo Nacional de Historia Natural, and was once the seat of the US embassy.

To the east, the square is represented by the Casa del Conde de Santovenia, which was transformed into the luxurious Hotel Santa Isabel in 1867.