For the first time since severing ties in 1961, the US and Cuba reopened embassies in each other's capitals on Monday.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla attended a ceremony at the Cuban Embassy in Washington to raise his country's flag, CNN reported.

US diplomats in Havana have readied everything from new business cards to the embassy sign.

But the festivities and flag-raising will have to wait for Secretary of State John Kerry's visit - the highest-level trip by a US official to Cuba since the 1959 revolution - for the embassy reopening ceremony in August.