Santiago de Cuba, Santiago de Cuba, Cuba
Leaving at 4.30 pm (16:30) to drive the 10 km out to Castillo de San Pedro de la Roca del Morro overlooking the Caribbean Sea to see cañonzao ceremony (firing of the cannon) by actors dressed up in Mambises outfit as the sun set.
This was an optional activity: coach CUC$5, entry CUC$4, camera CUC$5 = CUC$14 / US$14 / NZ$21.60.
A Unesco World Heritage Site since 1997, the San Pedro fort sits impregnably atop a 60m-high promontory at the entrance to Santiago harbor. The stupendous views from the upper terrace take in the wild western ribbon of Santiago's coastline backed by the velvety Sierra Maestra.
The fort was designed in 1587 by famous Italian military engineer Juan Bautista Antonelli (who also designed La Punta and El Morro forts in Havana) to protect Santiago from pillaging pirates who had successfully sacked the city in 1554. Due to financial constraints, the building work didn't start until 1633 (17 years after Antonelli's death) and it carried on sporadically for the next 60 years. In the interim British privateer Henry Morgan sacked and partially destroyed it. Finally finished in the early 1700s, El Morro's massive batteries, bastions, magazines and walls got little opportunity to serve their true purpose. With the era of piracy in decline, the fort was converted into a prison in the 1800s and it stayed that way – bar a brief interlude during the 1898 Spanish-Cuban-American War – until Cuban architect Francisco Prat Puig mustered up a restoration plan in the late 1960s.
Today, the fort hosts the swashbuckling Museo de Piratería, with another room given over to the US-Spanish naval battle that took place in the bay in 1898.
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/cuba/eastern-cuba/santiago-de-cuba/sights/military/castillo-de-san-pedro-de-la-roca-del-morro#ixzz3x6ZNIOQa
We were the only group for dinner at Restaurant El Morro and had their complete co-mida criollo (Creole food) buffet meal for CUC$13 plus not one but 2 pineapple juices came all up to CUC$16 / US$16 / NZ$24.75. How they fleeced the fact that Paul McCarthy once dropped in 2000 and ate here. Will they put my plate up in the bar?
Castillo de San Pedro de la Roca del Morro
Monday, December 28, 2015
Santiago de Cuba, Santiago de Cuba, Cuba
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