The Malecon

The Malecón was begun in 1901 and runs about eight kilometres from the mouth of Havana harbour west past Centro Habana and Vedado. It is a road and a seawall, and the wall is the point: people sit on it all evening, fish off it, drink on it, court on it and play music on it, and the buildings facing it are a peeling parade of everything Havana built between 1900 and 1958. When a northerly front comes through, waves break clean over the wall and across the road, which the city treats as normal.

What you actually see

• The seawall - a low parapet used continuously as seating along the whole length.
• The building line - salt-eaten facades from every decade of the first half of the twentieth century.
• The fishermen - hand lines and inner tubes worked off the wall all day.
• The waves - northerly swells breaking over the wall and across the road in winter.

When to go

November to April is the dry season, though winter fronts bring the biggest waves. Sunset is the hour when the wall fills. Summer evenings are hot and humid but the Malecon is at its busiest.

Honest expectations

The waves flood the road often enough that sections close, and the spray corrodes everything, including cameras. Restoration work has been going on for years and scaffolding moves along the line. Attention from hustlers is constant at the Old Havana end.

Nearby

Old Havana is at the eastern end, and Vedado and the Hotel Nacional are along the western stretch.