Page 16 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Cuba

14 ❯❯ Top 10 Cuba Highlights

The Modern City, Havana

Beyond La Habana Vieja, this lively, colorful metropolis of two million
people radiates inland from the harbor and coastline like a Spanish
fan, emerging from compact 19th-century barrios into more spacious
20th-century municipios and post-revolutionary suburbs. Apartment
blocks give way to once-noble, upper-class districts full of Beaux
Arts, Art Deco, and Modernist mansions, while concrete office blocks,
government buildings, and hotels from the 1950s give a retro feel.

Universidad
1
de La Habana
Havana University has
a neo-colonial facade
reached via a vast
staircase. Its museums
(above) showcase Cuba’s
flora, fauna, and pre-
Columbian cultures.
Capitolio
2
A replica of
Washington D.C.’s
Avenida de los
Malecón
Capitol (below), this 3 4
newly restored Neo- Stretching west Presidentes
Classical structure is from Paseo de Martí, the Flanked by mansions,
intended once again Malecón – Havana’s this broad boulevard
to be a congressional seafront boulevard slopes north to the
building. All points (above) – is the perfect Malecón and is studded
in Cuba are measured place for a sunset stroll. with monu ments to
from a diamond inset deceased heroes and
in the floor. heads of state.
Paseo de Martí
5
Sloping from
Parque Central to the
Malecón, this tree-
shaded boulevard –
known colloquially
by its former name of
Prado – is a great place
to meet locals. The area
is full of school kids at
play during the day.

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