Some things you may not know about the walls of Havana:
1. Construction of the original earthen wall began on February 3, 1674, from a plan signed by the king's military engineer, Cristóbal de Roda Antonelli.
The building was completed by two maritime sections, rebuilt between 1733 and 1740: the first, between the castles of Punta and La Fuerza, and the second, from the central wall of La Tenaza, in the cove of Atares, in the immediate vicinity of the convent of San Francisco.
2. Its total extension was about 4,892 meters, it measured on average 1.40 meters thick and 10 meters high. The garrison consisted of 3,400 soldiers and 180 artillery pieces.
3. To enter and exit the city, the wall originally had two gates: Puerta de La Muralla (later called Puerta de Tierra) and Puerta de La Punta.
Later, a total of 9 more gates were built, including Monserrate, Luz, San José and Jesús María, which would only open from 4:30 a.m. until 9:00 p.m. when the sound of a cannon shot announced the closing of the gates and night curfew. Some gates even had drawbridges.
4. Its demolition began in 1863, with the collapse of the great wall through the Monserrate gates, and did not culminate until the beginning of the 20th century.
5. The sentry box and bastion of San Telmo (next to the seminary of San Carlos and San Ambrosio) are the only partially complete remains of the walls that protected Havana from the sea from the 18th to the 19th century.
There are other remains of the wall near the central station, which still preserves the Arsenal Gate; near the current Museum of the Revolution and also in the basement of the Gran Manzana Kempinski hotel.
The military ceremony of the cannon shot at 9:00 p.m. has become a historical tradition over the years. Havana has always been shaken at 9:00 p.m. by the crash of this old cannon that once announced the closing of the city gates, then perhaps the time to go out on the town in the evening ... and which nowadays recalls the unfailing time to pour our applause to Cuba's healthcare workers in the face of the pandemic.
This is undoubtedly one of the must-see visits during your next stay in Havana.
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