La Giraldilla Restaurant & Tapas Bar is named for the iconic statue directly within it's remarkable view of Havana's port and colonial fortresses. 

 

The statue of la Giraldilla (The Dancer) is one of the most representative symbols of Havana, with legends of love, art, and history spinning within her in the port wind.  Isabel de Bobadilla, the wife of don Hernando de Soto, Comander in Chief of Santiago, inspired the statue of la Giraldilla.  As legend goes, when don Hernando de Soto left for a Florida expedition on orders from the king, doña Isabel, as she governed the city in her husbands place, spent hours at the highest castle point in Havana waiting for the ship that would bring her husband home. Soto never returned - he died on the Mississippi River June 30, 1540, leaving his wife forever waiting.

 

Havana sculptor Jerónimo Marín Pinzón created la Giraldilla out of the passion of Isabel and Hernando's legendary love in the 1630s. Pinzón sculpted from broze la Giraldilla and erected it on the highest point of the northeast fortress of the Real Fuerza, where doña Isabela continues spinning searching for her husband's return.