San Salvador de La Punta Museum, which is strategically located at the entrance to the channel into the harbor, in Havana; had been used as a fortress during the colonial times. Nowadays, it is considered to be a patrimonial, historical and cultural spot.
Havana’s famous Malecón (Sea Wall), which runs for eight Kilometers along the coastline of the Cuban capital city, takes visitors to the irregular and simple stone fortress.
La Punta and two other colonial fortresses, El Castillo de la Real Fuerza and Los Tres Reyes del Morro, are portrayed on the old standard of Havana city. Those solid walls and paving stones, where the waves crash roughly, have endured the inexorable passage of time; and its salt air encourages people to go into the history of Havana in depth.
After La Punta had been restored from 1999 to 2001, sponsored by the Office of the City Historian, it recovered its former appearance. As the construction of the fortress had taken a very long time and it was considered to be an expensive building, it became a polemic matter at that time and the works were suspended several times. One of its four bastions was even pulled down in 1601.
After San Cristóbal de La Habana was established in 1519, the colonial authorities tried to defend themselves from corsairs and pirates. That’s why, military engineer Giovanni Baptista Antonelli, forerunner of the construction of other defensive buildings, availed himself of the opportunity to build the fortress called La Punta; which was later restored and extended by Silvestre Abarca and Agustín Cramer.
The museum displays interesting collections of pieces belonging to military architecture from the Renaissance period, archaeological pieces, slabs and weapons.
The history of the fortress, which is displayed at Antonelli, San Lorenzo, Tejeda and Quintanilla Halls, climaxes in the Monographic Hall, where archaeological pieces are displayed.
The gallery called Sala del Tesoro exhibits pieces founded in the ocean bed, which had been plundered in the New World by the Spanish colonizers, from the 16th to the 19th centuries. There were several ships that had been unable to resist the attacks of corsairs and pirates or the winds of hurricane force from the tropics.
People really enjoy strolling through La Punta because of the naval mockups which are displayed there. They have been created by imaginative and skillful artisans, which have ably reproduced vessels that had been built a long time ago.
