• Submitted by: admin
• Culture and Traditions
• Entertainment
• Havana
• History
• national
• Society
• 01 / 03 / 2010

---

Havana has the largest urban park in the world. It stretches along around eight kilometres. It is the Malecón. Its wall becomes a virtually endless stone sofa. It also has avenues whose treed and benched promenades are true parks.

Among them, we can mention those of G and Paseo streets in Vedado, which, with their 50 meters’ width, somehow take the sea into the city. There is also the one of Quinta Avenida, in Miramar, which runs parallel to the coastline, and the mythical Paseo del Prado, with its bronze cups, corbels and lions, its lampposts, leafy laurels, and marble benches.

And there are, of course, the inner city parks, the centre piece of which is almost a statue of someone who deserves being remembered. In every Havana neighbourhood, there is a park called “de los chivos”, frequented by truants and young couples who want to hide from the crowd’s curiosity and find a discreet place for love.

Some cities in Cuba have more parks than others, like Holguín, in the eastern part of the country, the so-called city of parks. In the provinces’ parks, there was the age-old custom of girls going around them in one direction and boys in the opposite direction, until two of them got a liking for each other and started walking together.

There are parks that are preferred by students in their last-hour review before an exam; and parks such as the one on 21 and H streets in Vedado, where the cutest dogs in Havana are walked at sunset.

There are also intimate parks, almost an extension of the house, where parents take their children and end up taking their grandchildren, and others, more cosmopolite, like Parque Central and Parque del Quijote. The Parque de la India is attractive
for its marble statue representing the “Noble Havana”.

The Lenin Park, in the south of Havana, would deserve a separate section. Its 745 lush hectares are the green belt of the city, just like the Metropolitano, on the bank of the Almendares River.

There is also a park of cabezones (bigheads), because of the busts of illustrious figures raised there. There are the parks of the fish, the philosophers, the washerwomen, the lovers and the martyrs, which is near the University.

And there is the park of Fraternidad Americana (Fraternity of the Americas) where, more than 80 years ago, a ceiba tree was planted with earth from all the continent’s republics, and it is enclosed by a fence whose door is opened with a gold key.

Source: www.cubanow.net