La Habana Vieja, Centro Habana and the San Carlos de la Cabaña Fortress
On the third day, too, we explored Havana’s colourful districts on foot: first the Chinese quarter Barrio Chino, then back through Vedado to the Malecón. There is a beautiful viewpoint for the sunset on the other side of the harbour entrance, the large San Carlos de la Cabaña fortress. The fortress itself is worth seeing, and the sunset over Havana and the Malecón with a cold beer was magnificent. King Charles III of Spain had La Cabaña built from 1763, after the British had captured Havana in 1762; it is considered the third-largest fortress complex in the Americas and is part of the Old Havana World Heritage Site. The first three days in Havana were very lovely: the streets, the colours and details, the warm-hearted people – sadly also lots of tourists. It was exactly the right moment to fly to Holguín in the east the next day, pick up the rental car there and drive right across the country. In the end it came to more than 3,200 kilometres in our Chinese rice bowl, which, by the way, swallowed every pothole astonishingly bravely.
Road workers spreading asphalt in front of a peeling façade.A jewellery stall and a blue classic car by a painted wall.Straw hat and sunglasses – two encounters on the street.Servicio de Policía 315 – a red box on the house wall.An open wooden door and a patterned tiled floor in the hallway.A street of ornate balconies on the walk through Habana Centro.A woman at a wall covered in writing and a man at a red car.Laundry and people on the balcony of a stucco façade.Partagás on the tobacco factory and a house with balconies.A yellow school bus in front of a crumbling façade.The ornate tower of the Bacardí Building beside a rounded block.A bicycle taxi in front of pink columns, laundry on the balconies above.Bicycle taxis behind a passage with wall tiles.People sitting by a façade and a boy behind a barred gate.An organ beneath Gothic arches.Stained-glass windows with saints.A Gothic nave with altar and columns.A red Ford taxi and two pedestrians in the lane.Cigar, checked shirt, a calm gaze.A pink classic car in a narrow lane.A horse-drawn carriage with a white horse in front of a façade full of laundry.Customers at the ice-cream menu and a man with a newspaper.The tail of a green classic car.Two people in the doorway of a pink and turquoise façade.A yellow corner house on a long, straight street.Rust and a patch of yellow paint on the door of a red classic car.A red classic car in front of pastel houses.Cap, vest and a smile against a red-and-white wall.Colourful façade painting on a crumbling wall.Three people at a service window, house number 1084.Schoolgirls beside a yellow car, a blue classic car on the left.A green corner house and power lines above the wide street.A red classic car on the Malecón, the sea behind.A rusty yellow bus on the Malecón.Habana Libre in Vedado and a classic car in the wing mirror.A trumpeter in front of the tall pale stone wall.Che portraits and souvenirs outside a doorway.An alley with green and blue metal doors.Schoolgirls in yellow skirts and white knee socks.Long warehouses and harbour cranes by the water.The harbour entrance with the city, lighthouse and fortress.A train by the little Casa Blanca station and signs reading Cuba.Sunset over the harbour and Havana, from the wall of La Cabaña.The Cuban flag in the wind above the fortress.The moat and walls of La Cabaña, the moon in the evening sky.A bell gable with a cross on the stone wall.The dome of the Capitol above Havana in the evening light.The Morro lighthouse in the evening light.Sunset over the skyline and the Malecón – magnificent with a cold beer.The illuminated gate of La Cabaña at night.
