El Templete

A small neoclassical monument on the Plaza de Armas marking the spot where, according to tradition, the city was founded and its first mass and town council were held beneath a ceiba tree. Built in 1828 in the form of a Doric temple, it shelters three large canvases by French painter Jean-Baptiste Vermay depicting those founding scenes. A ceiba tree still grows beside it, and each November residents circle it making wishes, sustaining a civic ritual that predates modern Havana by centuries.