Plaza de la Catedral

This guide to Plaza de la Catedral in Havana starts with the bronze figure many visitors mistake for a living street performer: Antonio Gades, a Spanish flamenco dancer who never lived in Havana but loved this square enough that the city's historian gave him a statue here. It follows his career turning Carmen and Blood Wedding into international stage and film sensations, and the sculptor who set him forever mid-step, facing the cathedral. It also traces the cathedral's oddly mismatched bell towers, built by Jesuits in 1748, and the fossilized sea creatures still visible in its coral stone blocks.