Fidel's old toys, now a memorial.
A glass enclosure behind the Museo de la Revolucion shelters the Granma (didn't get a picture of it...looked quite elegant, that boat) the yacht that transported Castro and 81 guerrillas back to Cuba from exile in Mexico in 1956. Bought from an American,(who had named it after his Grandmother 'Granma') the 38-ft craft designed to carry 25 (presumably unarmed) passengers nearly foundered during the weeklong crossing. It eventually ran aground at Oriente Province in eastern Cuba, but it was two days behind schedule. The saga gets worse: Castro's forces were ambushed and only 16 survived, including Fidel, Che, Raul Castro, and Camilo Cienfuegos. The park around the yacht is filled with military curios: tanks, jeeps, the delivery truck used in the 1957 assault on the Palacio Presidencial, and a turbine from a U-2 spy plane allegedly downed during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
The Alfred de Schulthess House, 1956, Cubanacan Playa, Havana, Cuba. 9350 square feet. Raul Alvarez worked as supervising architect; Benno Fischer, Serge Koschin, John Blanton all worked on the architectural design; the noted Brazilian landscape architect, Roberto Burle Marx, collaborated on the landscape design of the three-acre property. Now a diplomatic residence for Switzerland. Received the 1958 National College of Architects Gold Medal.
