San Francisco de Asis square a wonderfull place in Old Havana

I love this place, The SanFrancisco de Asis square, is the second oldest in the city, it was named after the Franciscan church and convent San Francis of Assisi. It dates back to the XVII c. (1629) and it spontaneously became the first commercial place in the village.

Facing Havana harbor, the breezy Plaza de San Francisco de Asís first grew up in the 16th century when Spanish galleons stopped by at the quayside on their passage through the Indies to Spain. A market took root in the 1500s, followed by a church in 1608, though when the pious monks complained of too much noise the market was moved a few blocks south to Plaza Vieja.

Called San Francisco because of the convent next to it, this square was conceived in 1628, with the objective of supplying water to the ships trading with the metropolis. For many years it also served to stockpile the goods arriving from the harbor. Chronicles of the time say that the square had a busy commercial life. The people, in humble carts or afoot, sold and bought a variety of goods. It’s important to know that through this place the Spanish immigrants arrived to Cuba. Among the houses built around the plaza, as was already usual, the house of the Arostegui family, residence of the Captain Generals until the completion of the City Hall at the end of the 18th century, was erected.

The Plaza de San Francisco underwent a full restoration in the late 1990s and is most notable for its uneven cobblestones and the white marble Fuente de los Leones (Fountain of Lions) carved by the Italian sculptor Giuseppe Gaginni in 1836. A modern statue outside the square's famous church depicts El Caballero deParís , a well-known street person who roamed Havana during the 1950s, engaging passers-by with his philosophies on life, religion, politics and current events. On the eastern side of the plaza stands the Terminal Sierra Maestra cruise terminal, which dispatches shiploads of weekly tourists, while nearby the domed Lonja del Comercio is a former commodities market erected in 1909 and restored in 1996 to provide office space for foreign companies with joint ventures in Cuba.

This is a wonderfull site in old Havana. If you need visit it when you are in Cuba, just write me and I can help you.