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San Pedro de la Roca del Morro Fortress Santiago de Cuba

San Pedro de la Roca Castle

San Pedro de la Roca Castle or, as its known locally, El Morro de Santiago de Cuba, is a similar fortifaction to the El Morro Castle in Havana which was designed primarily as a fortress to protect the harbor mouth against pirates and other unwelcome guests. Designed in 1637 by Giovanni Battista Antonelli, a military engineer from Milan, the Morro was self sustainable due to its large warehouse accessible directly by ships, cut directly into the rock along the flank of the building. The San Pedro de la Roca del Morro Fortress was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1997, considering it as the best preserved and most complete example of Spanish-American military architecture in the Caribbean. Even though San Pedro de la Roca del Morro Fortress was primarily a defensive measure, it also incorporated four main levels and three large cannon sections to house artillery. Today the San Pedro de la Roca Castle is probably the most visited monument in Cuba’s second largest city of Santiago de Cuba.