El Malecón
Start with the sea. The Malecón, officially Avenida de Maceo, is a broad promenade, roadway and seawall that runs for 8 km along Havana's coast, from the mouth of the harbour in Old Havana past Centro Habana and Vedado to the mouth of the Almendares river. Lean on the wall, look back at the facades and you see why it exists: the cold fronts the locals call frentes fríos used to whip the waves right against the houses on San Lázaro.
Work began in 1901, during the temporary U.S. military rule. To celebrate the first 500 m, the American government built a roundabout where the seawall meets the Paseo del Prado, said by architects of the time to be the first in Cuba made of steel-reinforced concrete. Bands played Cuban melodies there every Sunday. Facing it stood the Miramar Hotel, the first in Cuba whose waiters wore tuxedos and waistcoats with gold buttons; for the first 15 years of independence it was the place to be seen. The Royalton Habana stands on the site today.
Later Cuban governments kept pushing the wall west. By 1923 it reached streets K and L in Vedado, and only in the early 1950s did it arrive at the Almendares. In 1957 and 1958 the roadway even served as the circuit of the Cuban Grand Prix.
Today the Malecón belongs to the Habaneros: people meet, sit and talk on the wall, and poorer families fish here at night for their dinner. It's free and open at any hour. From here the longest leg of the walk, 1300 m and about 19 minutes, takes you inland to the Museo de la Revolución.
























