VEDADO AND PLAZA DE LA REVOLUCIÓN
PERFUMES, TOILETRIES, AND JEWELRY
DEPARTMENT STORES AND SHOPPING CENTERS
VEDADO AND PLAZA DE LA REVOLUCIÓN
VEDADO AND PLAZA DE LA REVOLUCIÓN
CIUDAD PANAMERICANO AND COJÍMAR
Look for S to find recommended sights, activities, dining, and lodging.
S Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes: Divided into national and international sections, this art gallery competes with the world’s finest (click here and click here).
S Capitolio Nacional: Cuba’s former congressional building is an architectural glory reminiscent of Washington’s own Capitol (click here).
S Plaza de la Catedral: This small, atmospheric plaza is hemmed in by colonial mansions and a baroque cathedral (click here).
S Plaza de Armas: The restored cobbled plaza at the heart of Old Havana features tons of charm; don’t miss the Castillo de la Real Fuerza and Palacio de los Capitanes Generales (click here).
S Plaza Vieja: Still undergoing restoration, this antique plaza offers offbeat museums, Havana’s only brewpub, flashy boutiques, and heaps of ambience (click here).
S Hotel Nacional: A splendid landmark with magnificent architecture and oodles of history, this hotel is a great place to relax with a mojito and cigar while soaking in the heady atmosphere of the past (click here).
S Necrópolis Cristóbal Colón: This is one of the New World’s great cemeteries, with dramatic tombstones that comprise a who’s who of Cuban history (click here).
S Parque Histórico Militar Morro-Cabaña: An imposing castle complex contains the Castillo de los Tres Reyes del Morro and massive Fortaleza de San Carlos de la Cabaña, with cannons in situ and soldiers in period costume (click here).
S Tropicana: Havana at its most sensual, the Tropicana hosts a spectacular cabaret with more than 200 performers and dancers (click here).
S Museo Ernest Hemingway: “Papa’s” former home is preserved as it was on the day he died. His sportfishing boat, the Pilar, stands on the grounds (click here).
Havana (pop. 2.2 million), political, cultural, and industrial heart of the nation, lies 150 kilometers (93 miles) due south of Florida on Cuba’s northwest coast. It is built on the west side of a sweeping bay—Bahía de la Habana—and extends west 12 kilometers to the Río Jaimanitas and south for an equal distance.
Countless writers have commented on the exhilarating sensation that engulfs visitors to this most beautiful and beguiling of Caribbean cities. Set foot one time in Havana and you can only succumb to its enigmatic allure. It is impossible to resist the city’s mysteries and contradictions.
Havana has a flavor all its own, a merging of colonialism, capitalism, and Communism into one. One of the great historical cities of the New World, Havana is a far cry from the Caribbean backwaters that call themselves capitals elsewhere in the Antilles. Havana is a city, notes architect Jorge Rigau, “upholstered in columns, cushioned by colonnaded arcades.” The buildings come in a spectacular amalgam of styles—from the academic classicism of aristocratic homes, rococo residential exteriors, Moorish interiors, and art deco and art nouveau to stunning exemplars of 1950s moderne.
At the heart of the city is enchanting Habana Vieja (Old Havana), a living museum inhabited by 60,000 people and containing perhaps the finest collection of Spanish-colonial buildings in all the Americas. Baroque churches, convents, and castles that could have been transposed from Madrid or Cádiz still reign majestically over squares embraced by the former palaces of Cuba’s ruling gentry and cobbled streets still haunted by Ernest Hemingway’s ghost. Hemingway’s house, Finca Vigía, is one of dozens of museums dedicated to the memory of great men and women. And although older monuments of politically incorrect heroes were pulled down, they were replaced by dozens of monuments to those on the correct side of history.
The heart of Habana Vieja has been restored, and most of the important structures have been given facelifts, or better. Some have even metamorphosed into boutique hotels. Nor is there a shortage of 1950s-era modernist hotels steeped in Mafia associations. And hundreds of casas particulares provide an opportunity to live life alongside the habaneros themselves. As for food, Havana is the only place in Cuba where you can dine well every night of the week. There’s a dynamic new breed of paladar (private restaurant) owner in town and they’re now offering world-class cuisine in wow! settings. Make no bones—these are exciting times!
Then there’s the arts scene, perhaps unrivaled in Latin America. The city offers first-rate museums and galleries. Not only formal galleries, but informal ones where contemporary artists produce unique works of amazing profundity and appeal. There are tremendous crafts markets and boutique stores. Afro-Caribbean music is everywhere, quite literally on the streets. Lovers of sizzling salsa have dozens of venues from which to choose. Havana even has a hot jazz scene. Classical music and ballet are world class. And neither Las Vegas nor Rio de Janeiro can compare with Havana for sexy cabarets, with top billing now, as back in the day, being the Tropicana.
Havana is so large and the sights to be seen so many, that one week is the bare minimum needed. Metropolitan Havana sprawls over 740 square kilometers (286 square miles) and incorporates 15 municipios (municipalities). Havana is a collection of neighborhoods, each with its own distinct character. Since the city is so spread out, it is best to explore Havana in sections, concentrating your time on the three main districts of touristic interest—Habana Vieja, Vedado, and Miramar—in that order.
If you have only one or two days in Havana, book a get-your-bearings trip by HabanaBusTour or hop on an organized city tour offered by Havanatur or a similar agency. This will provide an overview of the major sites. Concentrate the balance of your time around Parque Central, Plaza de la Catedral, and Plaza de Armas. Your checklist of must-sees should include the Capitolio Nacional, Museo de la Revolución, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Catedral de la Habana, Museo de la Ciudad de la Habana, and Parque Histórico Militar Morro-Cabaña, featuring two restored castles attended by soldiers in period costume.
Habana Vieja, the original colonial city within the 17th-century city walls (now demolished), will require at least three days to fully explore. You can base yourself in one of the charming historic hotel conversions close to the main sights of interest.
Centro Habana has many casas particulares but few sites of interest, and its rubble-strewn, dimly lit streets aren’t the safest. Skip Centro for Vedado, the modern heart of the city that evolved in the early 20th century, with many ornate mansions in beaux-arts and art nouveau style. Its leafy streets make for great walking. Many of the city’s best casas particulares are here, as are most businesses, paladares, and nightclubs. The Hotel Nacional, Universidad de la Habana, Cementerio Colón, and Plaza de la Revolución are sights not to miss.
If you’re interested in beaux-arts or art deco architecture, then the once-glamorous Miramar, Cubanacán, and Siboney regions, west of Vedado, are worth exploring. Miramar also has excellent restaurants, deluxe hotels, and some of my favorite nightspots.
Most other sections of Havana are run-down residential districts of little interest to tourists. A few exceptions lie on the east side of Havana harbor. Regla and neighboring Guanabacoa are together a center of Santería and Afro-Cuban music. The 18th-century fishing village of Cojímar has Hemingway associations, and the nearby community of San Miguel de Padrón is where the great author lived for 20 years. A visit to his home, Finca Vigía, today the Museo Ernest Hemingway, is de rigueur. Combine it with a visit to the exquisite colonial Iglesia de Santa María del Rosario. About 15 kilometers east of the city, long, white-sand beaches—the Playas del Este—prove tempting on hot summer days.
In the suburban district of Boyeros, to the south, the Santuario de San Lázaro is an important pilgrimage site. A visit here can be combined with the nearby Mausoleo Antonio Maceo, where the hero general of the independence wars is buried outside the village of Santiago de las Vegas. A short distance east, the Arroyo Naranjo district has Parque Lenin, a vast park with an amusement park, horseback rides, boating, and more. Enthusiasts of botany can visit the botanical garden, Jardín Botánico Nacional.
Despite Havana’s great size, most sights of interest are highly concentrated, and most exploring is best done on foot.
The city was founded in July 1515 as San Cristóbal de la Habana, and was located on the south coast, where Batabanó stands today. The site was a disaster. On November 25, 1519, the settlers moved to the shore of the flask-shaped Bahía de la Habana. Its location was so advantageous that in July 1553 the city replaced Santiago de Cuba as the capital of the island.
Every spring and summer, Spanish treasure ships returning from the Americas crowded into Havana’s sheltered harbor before setting off for Spain in an armed convoy—la flota. By the turn of the 18th century, Havana was the third-largest city in the New World after Mexico City and Lima. The 17th and 18th centuries saw a surge of ecclesiastical construction.
In 1762, the English captured Havana but ceded it back to Spain the following year in exchange for Florida. The Spanish lost no time in building the largest fortress in the Americas—San Carlos de la Cabaña. Under the supervision of the new Spanish governor, the Marqués de la Torre, the city attained a new focus and rigorous architectural harmony. The first public gas lighting arrived in 1768, along with a workable system of aqueducts. Most of the streets were cobbled. Along them, wealthy merchants and plantation owners erected beautiful mansions fitted inside with every luxury in European style.
By the mid-19th century, Havana was bursting its seams. In 1863, the city walls came tumbling down, less than a century after they were completed. New districts went up, and graceful boulevards pushed into the surrounding countryside, lined with a parade of quintas (summer homes) fronted by classical columns. By the mid-1800s, Havana had achieved a level of modernity that surpassed that of Madrid.
Following the Spanish-Cuban-American War, Havana entered a new era of prosperity. The city spread out, its perimeter enlarged by parks, boulevards, and dwellings in eclectic, neoclassical, and revivalist styles, while older residential areas settled into an era of decay.
By the 1950s Havana was a wealthy and thoroughly modern city with a large and prospering middle class, and had acquired skyscrapers such as the Focsa building and the Hilton (now the Habana Libre). Ministries were being moved to a new center of construction, the Plaza de la República (today the Plaza de la Revolución), inland from Vedado. Gambling found a new lease on life, and casinos flourished.
Following the Revolution in 1959, a mass exodus of the wealthy and the middle class began, inexorably changing the face of Havana. Tourists also forsook the city, dooming Havana’s hotels, restaurants, and other businesses to bankruptcy. Festering slums and shanty towns marred the suburbs. The government ordered them razed. Concrete high-rise apartment blocks were erected on the outskirts. That accomplished, the Revolution turned its back on the city. Havana’s aged housing and infrastructure, much of it already decayed, have ever since suffered benign neglect. Even the mayor of Havana has admitted that “the Revolution has been hard on the city.”
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of poor peasant migrants poured into Havana from Oriente. The settlers changed the city’s demographic profile: Most of the immigrants were black (as many as 400,000 “palestinos,” immigrants from Santiago and the eastern provinces, live in Havana).
Finally, in the 1980s, the revolutionary government established a preservation program for Habana Vieja, and the Centro Nacional de Conservación, Restauración, y Museología was created to inventory Havana’s historic sites and implement a restoration program that would return much of the ancient city to pristine splendor. Much of the original city core now gleams afresh with confections in stone, while the rest of the city is left to crumble.
Habana Vieja (4.5 square km) is defined by the limits of the early colonial settlement that lay within fortified walls. The legal boundary of Habana Vieja includes the Paseo de Martí (Prado) and everything east of it.
Habana Vieja is roughly shaped like a diamond, with the Castillo de la Punta its northerly point. The Prado runs south at a gradual gradient from the Castillo de la Punta to Parque Central and, beyond, Parque de la Fraternidad. Two blocks east, Avenida de Bélgica parallels the Prado, tracing the old city wall to the harborfront at the west end of Desamparados. East of Castillo de la Punta, Avenida Carlos Manuel de Céspedes (Avenida del Puerto) runs along the harbor channel and curls south to Desamparados.
The major sites of interest are centered on Plaza de Armas, Plaza de la Catedral, and Plaza Vieja. Each square has its own flavor. The plazas and surrounding streets shine after a complete restoration that now extends to the area east of Avenida de Bélgica and southwest of Plaza Vieja, between Calles Brasil and Merced. This was the great ecclesiastical center of colonial Havana and is replete with churches and convents.
In the 20th century, many grandiose structures went up around Parque Central. Today, the park is the nexus for sightseeing.
Habana Vieja is a living museum—as many as 60,000 people live within the confines of the old city wall—and suffers from inevitable ruination brought on by the tropical climate, hastened since the Revolution by years of neglect. The grime of centuries has been soldered by tropical heat into the chipped cement and faded pastels. Beyond the restored areas, Habana Vieja is a quarter of sagging, mildewed walls and half-collapsed balconies. The much-deteriorated (mostly residential) southern half of Habana Vieja requires caution.
Paseo de Martí, colloquially known as the Prado, is a kilometer-long tree-lined boulevard that slopes southward, uphill, from the harbor mouth to Parque Central. The beautiful boulevard was initiated by the Marqués de la Torre in 1772 and completed in 1852, when it had the name Alameda de Isabella II. It lay extramura (outside the old walled city) and was Havana’s most notable thoroughfare. Mansions of aristocratic families rose on each side and it was a sign of distinction to live here. The paseo—the daily carriage ride—along the boulevard was an important social ritual, with bands positioned at regular intervals to play to the parade of volantas (carriages).
French landscape artist Jean-Claude Nicolas Forestier remodeled the Prado to its present form in 1929. It’s guarded by eight bronze lions, with an elevated central walkway bordered by an ornate wall with alcoves containing marble benches carved with scroll motifs. At night it is lit by brass gas lamps with globes atop wrought-iron lampposts in the shape of griffins. Schoolchildren sit beneath shade trees, listening attentively to lessons presented alfresco. An art fair is held on Sundays.
Palacio de Matrimonio
Heading downhill from Neptuno, the first building of interest, on the east side at the corner of Virtudes, is the former American Club—U.S. expat headquarters before the Revolution. The Palacio de Matrimonio (Prado #306, esq. Ánimas, tel. 07/866-0661, Tues.-Fri. 8am-6pm), on the west side at the corner of Ánimas, is where many of Havana’s wedding ceremonies are performed. The palace, built in 1914, boasts a magnificent neo-baroque facade and an even more spectacularly ornate interior.
The Moorish-inspired Hotel Sevilla (Trocadero #55) is like entering a Moroccan medina. It was inspired by the Patio of the Lions at the Alhambra in Granada, Spain. The hotel opened in 1908. The gallery walls are festooned with black-and-white photos of famous figures who have stayed here, from singer Josephine Baker and boxer Joe Louis to Al Capone, who took the entire sixth floor (Capone occupied room 615).
At Trocadero, budding dancers train for potential ballet careers in the Escuela Nacional de Ballet (National School of Ballet, Prado #207, e/ Colón y Trocadero, tel. 07/862-7053 for permission to visit). On the west side, the Casa de los Científicos (Prado #212, esq. Trocadero, tel. 07/862-1607), the former home of President José Miguel Gómez, first president of the republic, is now a hotel; pop in to admire the fabulous stained-glass work and chapel.
At Prado and Colón, note the art deco Cine Fausto, an ornamental band on its upper facade; two blocks north, examine the mosaic mural of a Nubian beauty on the upper wall of the Centro Cultural de Árabe (between Refugio and Trocadero).
The bronze statue of Juan Clemente-Zenea (1832-1871), at the base of the Prado, honors a nationalist poet shot for treason in 1871.
The small, recently restored Castillo de San Salvador de la Punta (Av. Carlos M. de Céspedes, esq. Prado y Malecón) guards the entrance to Havana’s harbor channel at the base of the Prado. The fortress was initiated in 1589 directly across from the Morro castle so that the two fortresses could catch invaders in a crossfire. A great chain was slung between them each night to secure Havana harbor. It is currently closed to the public.
Gazing over the plaza on the west side of the castle is a life-size statue of Venezuelan general Francisco de Miranda Rodríguez (1750-1816), while 100 meters east of the castle is a statue of Pierre D’Iberville (1661-1706), a Canadian explorer who died in Havana.
The park immediately south of the Castillo de San Salvador, on the south side of Avenida Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, at the base (and east) of the Prado, is divided in two by Avenida de los Estudiantes.
Parque de los Enamorados (Park of the Lovers), on the north side of Avenida de los Estudiantes, features a statue of an Indian couple, plus the Monumento de Estudiantes de Medicina, a small Grecian-style temple shading the remains of a wall used by Spanish-colonial firing squads. On November 27, 1871, eight medical students met their deaths after being falsely accused of desecrating the tomb of a prominent loyalist. A trial found them innocent, but enraged loyalist troops held their own trial and shot the students, who are commemorated each November 27.
Parque de Mártires (Martyrs’ Park), on the south side of Avenida de los Estudiantes, occupies the ground of the former Tacón prison, built in 1838. Nationalist hero José Martí was imprisoned here 1869-1870. The Carcel de la Habana prison was demolished in 1939. Preserved are two of the punishment cells and the chapel used by condemned prisoners before being marched to the firing wall.
Spacious Parque Central is the social epicenter of Habana Vieja. The park—bounded by the Prado, Neptuno, Zulueta, and San Martín—is presided over by stately royal palms shading a marble statue of José Martí. It was sculpted by José Vilalta de Saavedra and inaugurated in 1905. Adjacent, baseball fanatics gather at a point called “esquina caliente” (“hot corner”) to discuss and argue the intricacies of pelota (baseball).
The park is surrounded by historic hotels, including the triangular Hotel Plaza (Zulueta #267), built in 1909, on the northeast face of the square. In 1920, baseball legend Babe Ruth stayed in room 216, preserved as a museum with his signed bat and ball in a case.
Much of the social action happens in front of the Hotel Inglaterra (Paseo de Martí #416), opened in 1856 and today the oldest Cuban hotel still extant. The sidewalk, known in colonial days as the Acera del Louvre, was a focal point for rebellion against Spanish rule. A plaque outside the hotel entrance honors the “lads of the Louvre sidewalk” who died for Cuban independence.
Inside, the hotel boasts elaborate wrought-ironwork and exquisite Mudejar-style detailing, including arabesque archways and azulejos (patterned tile). A highlight is the sensuous life-size bronze statue of a Spanish dancer—La Sevillana—in the main bar.
Immediately south of the Inglaterra, the Gran Teatro (Paseo de Martí #452, e/ San Rafael y Neptuno, tel. 07/861-3079, daily 9am-5pm, CUC2 with guided tour) originated in 1837 as the Teatro Tacón, drawing operatic luminaries such as Enrico Caruso and Sarah Bernhardt. The current neo-baroque structure dates from 1915, when a social club—the Centro Gallego—was built around the old Teatro Tacón for the Galician community.
Its exorbitantly baroque facade drips with caryatids and has four towers, each tipped by a white marble angel reaching gracefully for heaven. It functions as a theater for the Ballet Nacional and Ópera Nacional de Cuba. The main auditorium—the exquisitely decorated 2,000-seat Teatro García Lorca—features a painted dome and huge chandelier. Smaller performances are hosted in the 500-seat Sala Alejo Carpentier and the 120-seat Sala Artaud. It was closed at last visit for a long-lasting restoration.
The international section of the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (National Fine Arts Museum, San Rafael, e/ Zulueta y Monserrate, tel. 07/863-9484 or 07/862-0140, www.museonacional.cult.cu, Tues.-Sat. 9am-5pm, Sun. 10am-2pm, entrance CUC5, or CUC8 for both sections, guided tour CUC2) occupies the former Centro Asturiano, on the southeast side of the square. The building, lavishly decorated with neoclassical motifs, was erected in 1885 but rebuilt in Renaissance style in 1927 following a fire and housed the postrevolutionary People’s Supreme Court. A stained-glass window above the main staircase shows Columbus’s three caravels.
The art collection is displayed on five floors covering 4,800 square meters. The works span the United States, Latin America, Asia, and Europe—including masters such as Gainsborough, Goya, Murillo, Rubens, Velásquez, and various Impressionists. The museum also boasts Latin America’s richest trove of Roman, Greek, and Egyptian antiquities.
Parque Central
The statuesque Capitolio Nacional (Capitol, Paseo de Martí, e/ San Martín y Dragones, tel. 07/861-5519, daily 9am-7pm, entrance CUC3, guided tours CUC1, cameras CUC2), one block south of Parque Central, dominates Havana’s skyline. It was built between 1926 and 1929 as Cuba’s Chamber of Representatives and Senate and designed after Washington’s own Congress building. The 692-foot-long edifice is supported by colonnades of Doric columns, with semicircular pavilions at each end of the building. The lofty stone cupola rises 62 meters, topped by a replica of 16th-century Florentine sculptor Giambologna’s famous bronze Mercury in Italy’s Palazzo de Bargello.
A massive stairway—flanked by neoclassical figures in bronze by Italian sculptor Angelo Zanelli that represent Labor and Virtue—leads up to an entrance portico with three tall bronze doors sculpted with 30 bas-reliefs that depict important events of Cuban history. Inside, facing the door is the Estatua de la República (Statue of the Republic), a massive bronze sculpture (also by Zanelli) of Cuba’s Indian maiden of liberty. At 17.5 meters (57 feet) tall, she is the world’s third-largest indoor statue (the other two are the gold Buddha in Nava, Japan, and the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.). In the center of the floor a replica of a 24-carat diamond marks Kilometer 0, the point from which all distances on the island are calculated.
The 394-foot-long Salón de los Pasos Perdidos (Great Hall of the Lost Steps), so named because of its acoustics, is inlaid with patterned marble motifs and features bronze bas-reliefs, green marble pilasters, and massive lamps on carved pedestals of glittering copper. Renaissance-style candelabras dangle from the frescoed ceiling. The semicircular Senate chamber and Chamber of Representatives are at each end.
Paseo de Martí (Prado) runs south from Parque Central three blocks, where it ends at the junction with Avenida Máximo Gómez (Monte). Here rises the Fuente de la India Noble Habana in the middle of the Prado. Erected in 1837, the fountain is surmounted by a Carrara-marble statue of the legendary Indian queen. In one hand she bears a cornucopia, in the other a shield with the arms of Havana. Four fish at her feet occasionally spout water.
The Asociación Cultural Yoruba de Cuba (Prado #615, e/ Dragones y Monte, tel. 07/863-5953, asyoruba@cubarte.cult.cu, daily 9am-5pm) has an upstairs Museo de los Orishas (CUC10, students CUC3) dedicated to the orishas of Santería.
The constitution for the republic was signed in 1901 in the Teatro Martí (Dragones, esq. Zulueta), one block west of the Prado.
The Parque de la Fraternidad (Friendship Park) was laid out in 1892 on an old military drill square, the Campo de Marte, to commemorate the fourth centennial of Columbus’s discovery of America (in the mid-1850s it was the site of the city’s train station). The current layout by Jean-Claude Nicolas Forestier dates from 1928. The Árbol de la Fraternidad Americana (Friendship Tree) was planted at its center on February 24, 1928, to cement goodwill between the nations of the Americas. Busts and statues of outstanding American leaders such as Simón Bolívar and Abraham Lincoln watch over.
The Palacio de Aldama (Amistad #510, e/ Reina y Estrella), on the park’s far southwest corner, is a grandiose mansion built in neoclassical style in 1844 for a wealthy Basque, Don Domingo Aldama y Arrechaga. Its facade is lined by Ionic columns and the interior features murals of scenes from Pompeii; the garden courtyard features ornamental fountains. When the owner’s nationalist feelings became known, it was ransacked and the interior defaced in 1868 by loyalists. It is not open to the public.
To the park’s northeast side is a graveyard for rusting antique steam trains awaiting restoration as museum pieces.
The Partagás Cigar Factory (Industria #520, e/ Dragones y Barcelona, tel. 07/863-5766), on the west side of the Capitolio, features a four-story classical Spanish-style facade capped by a roofline of baroque curves topped by lions. The factory specializes in full-bodied cigars such as the Montecristo and, of course, the Partagás, started in 1843 by Catalan immigrant Don Jaime Partagás Ravelo. Partagás was murdered in 1868—some say by a rival who discovered that Partagás was having an affair with his wife—and his ghost is said to haunt the factory. It closed in 2010 for repair and remained so at press time, with little sign of progress; the cigar-making facility has moved to the former El Rey del Mundo factory (Luceña #816 esq. Penalver, Centro Habana), open for tours.
You’ll forever remember the pungent aroma of a cigar factory, a visit to which is de rigueur. The factories, housed in colonial buildings, remain much as they were in the mid-19th century. Though now officially known by ideologically sound names, they’re still commonly referred to by their prerevolutionary names. Each specializes in a number of cigar brands of a particular flavor—the government assigns to certain factories the job of producing particular brands.
Tours usually bypass the tobacco preparations and begin in the galeras (rolling rooms), then pass to the quality-control methods.
Note that the factory names are switched between factories with annoying regularity when one or more close for repair.
No cameras or bags are permitted.
You must purchase your ticket in advance at any state tour agency.
Fábrica Corona (20 de Mayo #520, e/ Marta Abreu y Línea, Cerro, tel. 07/873-0131, Mon.-Fri. 9am-11am and 1pm-3pm, CUC10) is a modern cigar factory producing Hoyo de Monterey, Punch, and other labels.
Fábrica de Tabaco H. Upmann (Padre Varela, e/ Desagüe y Peñal Verno, Centro Habana, tel. 07/878-1059 or 07/879-3927, 9am-1pm, CUC10), formerly the Fábrica de Tabaco Romeo y Julieta, reopened to visits in 2013 as the temporary home of H. Upmann.
Fábrica de Tabaco Partagás (Luceña esq. Penalver, Centro Habana), formerly the El Rey del Mundo factory, opened in 2011 to house the Partagás workers.
Fábrica de Tabaco Partagás (Calle Industria #520, e/ Dragones y Barcelona, Habana Vieja, tel. 07/862-0086 or 07/878-4368), the original home of Partagás remained closed for repair at press time.
Fábrica El Laguito
Fábrica El Laguito (Av. 146 #2302, e/ 21 y 21A, Cubanacán, tel. 07/208-2486) makes Cohibas. Since Cohibas are made from only the finest leaves, El Laguito is given first choice from the harvest. El Laguito also makes the best cigar in the world—the Trinidad, a 7.5-inch-long cigar made exclusively for Castro to present to diplomats and dignitaries. Requests to visit should be made through Tabacuba (Virtudes #609, e/ Escobar y Gervasio, Centro Habana, tel. 07/877-6861), which is in charge of the industry.
Calle Agramonte, more commonly referred to by its colonial name of Zulueta, parallels the Prado and slopes gently upward from Avenida de los Estudiantes to the northeast side of Parque Central. Traffic runs one-way uphill.
At its north end is the Monumento al General Máximo Gómez. This massive monument of white marble by sculptor Aldo Gamba was erected in 1935 to honor the Dominican-born hero of the Cuban wars of independence who led the Liberation Army as commander-in-chief. Generalissimo Gómez (1836-1905) is cast in bronze, reining in his horse.
One block north of Parque Central, at the corner of Zulueta and Ánimas, a mosaic on the paving announces your arrival at Sloppy Joe’s, commemorated as Freddy’s Bar in Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not. In 2013 it reopened its doors after lying shuttered, near-derelict.
The old Cuartel de Bomberos fire station houses the tiny Museo de Bomberos (Museum of Firemen, Zulueta #257, e/ Neptuno y Ánimas, tel. 07/863-4826, Tues.-Fri. 9:30am-5pm, free), displaying a Merryweather engine from 1894 and antique firefighting memorabilia.
Immediately beyond the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes and Museo de la Revolución is Plaza 13 de Mayo, a grassy park named to commemorate the ill-fated attack of the presidential palace by student martyrs on March 13, 1957. At the base of Zulueta, at the junction with Cárcel, note the flamboyant art nouveau building housing the Spanish Embassy.
The ornate building facing north over Plaza 13 de Mayo was initiated in 1913 to house the provincial government. Before it could be finished (in 1920), it was earmarked as the Palacio Presidencial (Presidential Palace), and Tiffany’s of New York was entrusted with its interior decoration. It was designed by Belgian Paul Belau and Cuban Carlos Maruri in an eclectic style, with a lofty dome. Following the Revolution, the three-story palace was converted into the dour Museo de la Revolución (Museum of the Revolution, Refugio #1, e/ Zulueta y Monserrate, tel. 07/862-4091, daily 10am-5pm, CUC6, cameras CUC2, guide CUC2). It is fronted by a SAU-100 Stalin tank used during the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 and a semi-derelict watchtower—Baluarte de Ángel—erected in 1680.
The marble staircase leads to the Salón de los Espejos (the Mirror Room), a replica of that in Versailles (replete with paintings by Armando Menocal); and Salón Dorado (the Gold Room), decorated with gold leaf and highlighted by its magnificent dome.
Rooms are divided chronologically, from the colonial period to the modern day. Maps describe the progress of the revolutionary war. Guns and rifles are displayed alongside grisly photos of dead and tortured heroes. The Rincón de los Cretinos (Corner of Cretins) pokes fun at Batista, Ronald Reagan, and George Bush.
At the rear, in the former palace gardens, is the Granma Memorial, preserving the vessel that brought Castro and his revolutionaries from Mexico to Cuba in 1956. The Granma is encased in a massive glass structure. It’s surrounded by vehicles used in the revolutionary war: armored vehicles, the bullet-riddled “Fast Delivery” truck used in the student commandos’ assault on the palace on March 13, 1957 (Batista escaped through a secret door), and Castro’s Toyota jeep from the Sierra Maestra. There’s also a turbine from the U-2 spy plane downed during the missile crisis in 1962, plus a naval Sea Fury and a T-34 tank.
The Cuban section of the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (National Fine Arts Museum, Trocadero, e/ Zulueta y Monserrate, tel. 07/863-9484 or 07/862-0140, www.museonacional.cult.cu, Tues.-Sat. 9am-5pm, Sun. 10am-2pm, entrance CUC5, or CUC8 for both sections, guided tour CUC2) is housed in the soberly classical Palacio de Bellas Artes. The museum features an atrium garden from which ramps lead up to two floors exhibiting a complete spectrum of Cuban paintings, engravings, sketches, and sculptures. Works representing the vision of early 16th- and 17th-century travelers merge into colonial-era pieces, early 20th-century Cuban interpretations of Impressionism, Surrealism, and works spawned by the Revolution. Fantastic!
Avenida de los Misiones, or Monserrate as everyone knows it, parallels Zulueta one block to the east (traffic is one-way, downhill) and follows the space left by the ancient city walls after they were demolished last century.
At the base of Monserrate, at its junction with Calle Tacón, is the once lovely Casa de Pérez de la Riva (Capdevila #1; closed for restoration at press time), built in Italian Renaissance style in 1905.
Immediately north is a narrow pedestrian alley (Calle Aguiar e/ Peña Pobre y Capdevila) that in 2012 was turned into the Callejón de los Peluqueros (Hairdressers’ Alley). Adorned with colorful murals, it’s the venue for the community ArteCorte project—the inspiration of local stylist Gilberto “Papito” Valladares—and features barber shops, art galleries, and cafés. Papito (Calle Aguiar #10, tel. 07/861-0202) runs a hairdressers’ school and salon (by appointment) that doubles as a barbers’ museum.
The Gothic Iglesia del Santo Ángel Custodio (Monserrate y Cuarteles, tel. 07/861-8873), immediately east of the Palacio Presidencial, sits atop a rock known as Angel Hill. The church was founded in 1687 by builder-bishop Diego de Compostela. The tower dates from 1846, when a hurricane toppled the original, while the facade was reworked in neo-Gothic style in the mid-19th century. Cuba’s national hero, José Martí, was baptized here on February 12, 1853.
The church was the setting for the tragic marriage scene that ends in the violent denouement on the steps of the church in the 19th-century novel Cecilia Valdés by Cirilo Villaverde. A bust of the author stands in the plazuela outside the main entrance, on the corner of Calles Compostela and Cuarteles.
The Edificio Bacardí (Bacardí Building, Monserrate #261, esq. San Juan de Dios), former headquarters of the Bacardí rum empire, is a stunning exemplar of art deco design. Designed by Cuban architect Esteban Rodríguez and finished in December 1929, it is clad in Swedish granite and local limestone. Terra-cotta of varying hues accents the building, with motifs showing Grecian nymphs and floral patterns. It’s crowned by a Lego-like pyramidal bell tower topped with a brass-winged bat—the famous Bacardí motif.
Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes
The building now houses various offices. Access is restricted to the Café Barrita bar (daily 9am-6pm)—a true gem of art deco design—to the right of the lobby, up the stairs.
The famous restaurant and bar El Floridita (corner of Monserrate and Calle Obispo, tel. 07/867-1301, daily 11:30am-midnight) has been serving food since 1819, when it was called Pina de Plata. It is haunted by Ernest Hemingway’s ghost. You expect a spotlight to come on and Desi Arnaz to appear conducting a dance band, and Hemingway to stroll in as he would every morning when he lived in Havana and drank with Honest Lil, the Worst Politician, and other real-life characters from his novels. A life-size bronze statue of Hemingway, by sculptor José Villa, leans with an elbow upon the dark mahogany bar where Constante Ribailagua once served frozen daiquiris to the great writer (Hemingway immortalized both the drink and the venue in his novel Islands in the Stream) and such illustrious guests as Gary Cooper, Tennessee Williams, Marlene Dietrich, and Jean-Paul Sartre.
El Floridita has been spruced up for tourist consumption with a 1930s art deco polish. They’ve overpriced the place, but sipping a daiquiri here is a must.
Throughout most of the colonial era, sea waves washed up on a beach that lined the southern shore of the harbor channel and bordered what is today Calle Cuba and, eastward, Calle Tacón, which runs along the site of the old city walls forming the original waterfront. In the early 19th century, the area was extended with landfill, and a broad boulevard—Avenida Carlos Manuel de Céspedes (Avenida del Puerto)—was laid out along the new harborfront. Parque Luz Caballero, between the avenida and Calle Tacón, is pinned by a statue of José de la Luz Caballero (1800-1862), a philosopher and nationalist.
Overlooking the harborfront at the foot of Empedrado is the Fuente de Neptuno (Neptune Fountain), erected in 1838.
The giant and beautiful modernist glass cube at the Avenida del Puerto and Calle Narciso López, by Plaza de Armas, is the Cámara de Rejas, the new sewer gate! Educational panels tell the history of Havana’s sewer system.
Calle Cuba extends east from the foot of Monserrate. At the foot of Calle Cuarteles is the Palacio de Mateo Pedroso y Florencia, known today as the Palacio de Artesanía (Artisans Palace, Cuba #64, e/ Tacón y Peña Pobre, Mon.-Sat. 8am-8pm, Sat. 9am-2pm, free), built in Moorish style for nobleman Don Mateo Pedroso around 1780. Pedroso’s home displays the typical architectural layout of period houses, with stores on the ground floor, slave quarters on the mezzanine, and the owner’s dwellings above. Today it houses craft shops and boutiques, and has folkloric music in the patio.
Immediately east is Plazuela de la Maestranza, where a remnant of the old city wall is preserved. On its east side, in the triangle formed by the junction of Calles Cuba, Tacón, and Chacón, is a medieval-style fortress, El Castillo de Atane, a police headquarters built in 1941 as a pseudo-colonial confection.
The former Seminario de San Carlos y San Ambrosio, a massive former seminary running the length of Tacón east of El Castillo de Atane, was established by the Jesuits in 1721 (the training center for ecclesiasticals moved in 2011 to the Carretera Monumental, east of Havana) and is now the Centro Cultural Félix Varela (e/ Chacón y Empedrado, tel. 07/862-8790, Mon.-Sat. 9am-4pm, free). The downstairs cloister is open to the public.
The entrance to the seminary overlooks an excavated site showing the foundations of the original seafront section of the city walls—here called the Cortina de Valdés.
Tacón opens to a tiny plazuela at the junction with Empedrado, where horse-drawn cabs called calezas offer guided tours. The Museo de Arqueología (Tacón #12, e/ O’Reilly y Empedrado, tel. 07/861-4469, Tues.-Sat. 9:30am-5pm, Sun. 9am-1pm, CUC1) displays pre-Columbian artifacts, plus ceramics and items from the early colonial years. The museum occupies Casa de Juana Carvajal, a mansion first mentioned in documents in 1644. Its most remarkable feature is a series of eccentric floor-to-ceiling murals depicting life as it was lived in the 1700s.
Plaza de la Catedral
The exquisite cobbled Plaza de la Catedral (Cathedral Square) was the last square to be laid out in Habana Vieja. It occupied a lowly quarter where rainwater and refuse collected (it was originally known as the Plazuela de la Ciénaga—Little Square of the Swamp). A cistern was built in 1587, and only in the following century was the area drained. Its present texture dates from the 18th century.
The square is Habana Vieja at its most quintessential, the atmosphere enhanced by women in traditional costume who will pose for your camera for a small fee.
On the north side of the plaza and known colloquially as Catedral Colón (Columbus Cathedral) is the Catedral San Cristóbal de la Habana (St. Christopher’s Cathedral, tel. 07/861-7771, Mon.-Sat. 10:30am-2pm, Sun. 9am-noon, tower tour CUC1), initiated by the Jesuits in 1748. The order was kicked out of Cuba by Carlos III in 1767, but the building was eventually completed in 1777 and altered again in the early 19th century. Thus the original baroque interior (including the altar) is gone, replaced in 1814 by a classical interior.
The baroque facade is adorned with clinging columns and ripples like a great swelling sea; Cuban novelist Alejo Carpentier thought it “music turned to stone.” A royal decree of December 1793 elevated the church to a cathedral.
Columns divide the rectangular church into three naves. The neoclassical main altar is simple and made of wood; the murals above are by Italian painter Guiseppe Perovani. The chapel immediately to the left has several altars, including one of Carrara marble inlaid with gold, silver, onyx, and carved hardwoods. Note, too, the wooden image of Saint Christopher, patron saint of Havana, dating to 1633.
The Spanish believed that a casket brought to Havana from Santo Domingo in 1796 and that resided in the cathedral for more than a century held the ashes of Christopher Columbus. It was returned to Spain in 1899. All but the partisan habaneros now believe that the ashes were those of Columbus’s son Diego.
This splendid mansion, on the northwest side of the plaza, was built during the 16th century by Governor General Gonzalo Pérez de Angulo and has since been added to by subsequent owners. Today a café occupies the portico, while the inner courtyard, with its fountain amid lush palms and clinging vines, houses the Restaurante El Patio. The upstairs restaurant offers splendid views over the plaza. Sunlight pouring in through stained-glass mediopuntos saturates the floors with shifting fans of red and blue.
This simple two-story structure, on the south side of the square, is a perfect example of the traditional Havana merchant’s house of the period, with side stairs and an entresuelo (mezzanine of half-story proportions). It was built in the 1720s for Governor General Don Luis Chacón. In the 1930s, it housed the Havana Club Bar, which was used by Graham Greene as the setting for Wormold’s meeting with Captain Segura (based on Batista’s real-life police chief, Ventura) in Our Man in Havana. Today it houses the Museo de Arte Colonial (Colonial Art Museum, San Ignacio #61, tel. 07/862-6440, daily 9:30am-5pm, entrance CUC52, cameras CUC5, guides CUC1), which re-creates the lavish interior of an aristocratic colonial home. One room is devoted to colorful stained-glass vitrales.
At the southwest corner of the plaza, this short cul-de-sac is where an original cistern was built to supply water to ships in the harbor. The aljibe (cistern) marked the terminus of the Zanja Real (the “royal ditch,” or chorro), a covered aqueduct that brought water from the Río Almendares some 10 kilometers away.
The Casa de Baños, which faces onto the square, looks quite ancient but was built in the 20th century in colonial style on the site of a bathhouse erected over the aljibe. Today the building contains the Galería Victor Manuel (San Ignacio #56, tel. 07/861-2955, daily 10am-9pm), selling quality arts.
At the far end of Callejón del Chorro is the Taller Experimental de la Gráfica (tel. 07/864-7622, tgrafica@cubarte.cult.cu, Mon.-Fri. 9am-4pm), a graphics cooperative where you can watch artists make prints for sale.
On the plaza’s east side is the Casa de Conde de Lombillo (tel. 07/860-4311, Mon.-Fri. 9am-5pm, Sat. 9am-1pm, free). Built in 1741, this former home of a slave trader houses a small post office (Cuba’s first), as it has since 1821. The building now holds historical lithographs. The mansion adjoins the Casa del Marqués de Arcos (closed to visitors), built in the 1740s for the royal treasurer. What you see is the rear of the mansion; the entrance is on Calle Mercaderes, where the building facing the entrance is graced by the Mural Artístico-Histórico, by Cuban artist Andrés Carrillo.
The two houses are fronted by a wide portico supported by thick columns. Note the mailbox set into the wall, a grotesque face of a tragic Greek mask carved in stone, with a scowling mouth as its slit. A life-size bronze statue of Spanish flamenco dancer Antonio Gades (1936-2004) leans against one of the columns.
The Centro Wilfredo Lam (San Ignacio #22, esq. Empedrado, tel. 07/861-2096 and 07/861-3419, wlam@artsoft.cult.cu, Mon.-Fri. 8am-5pm), on cobbled Empedrado, on the northwest corner of the plaza, occupies the former mansion of the counts of Peñalver. This art center displays works by the eponymous Cuban artist as well as artists from Latin America. The institution studies and promotes contemporary art from around the world.
No visit to Havana is complete without popping into La Bodeguita del Medio (Empedrado #207, tel. 07/867-1374, daily 10am-11:30pm), half a block west of the cathedral. This neighborhood hangout was originally the coach house of the mansion next door. Later it was a bodega, a mom-and-pop grocery store where Spanish immigrant Ángel Martínez served food and drinks.
The bar is to the front, with the restaurant behind. Troubadours move among the thirsty turistas. Between tides, you can still savor the proletarian fusion of dialectics and rum. The house drink is the mojito.
Adorning the walls are posters, paintings, and faded photos of Ernest Hemingway, Carmen Miranda, and other famous visitors. The walls were once decorated with the signatures and scrawls of visitors dating back decades. Alas, a renovation wiped away much of the original charm; the artwork was erased and replaced in ersatz style, with visitors being handed blue pens (famous visitors now sign a chalkboard). The most famous graffiti is credited to Hemingway: “Mi mojito en La Bodeguita, mi daiquirí en El Floridita,” he supposedly scrawled on the sky-blue walls. According to Tom Miller in Trading with the Enemy, Martínez concocted the phrase as a marketing gimmick after the writer’s death. Errol Flynn thought it “A Great Place to Get Drunk.”
Built in the 1820s, at the peak of the baroque era, this home has a trefoil-arched doorway opening onto a zaguán (courtyard). Exquisite azulejos (painted tiles) decorate the walls. Famed novelist Alejo Carpentier used the house as the main setting for his novel El Siglo de las Luces (The Enlightenment). A portion of the home, which houses the Centro de Promoción Cultural, is dedicated to his memory as the Fundación Alejo Carpentier (Empedrado #215, tel. 07/861-5500, Mon.-Fri. 8:30am-4:30pm, free). Displayed are his early works, with his raincoat thrown stylishly over his old desk chair.
One block west, tiny Plazuela de San Juan de Dios (Empedrado, e/ Habana y Aguiar) is pinned by a white marble facsimile of Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote, sitting in a chair, pen in hand, lending the plaza its colloquial name: Parque Cervantes.
The most important plaza in Habana Vieja, and the oldest, handsome Arms Square was laid out in 1519 and named Plaza de Iglesia for a church that was demolished in 1741 after an English warship, the ill-named HMS Invincible, was struck by lightning and exploded, sending its main mast sailing down on the church. Later, Plaza de Armas evolved to become the settlement’s administrative center, when military parades and musical concerts were held and the gentry would take their evening promenade. The plaza is ringed by stalls selling tatterdemalion antiquarian books.
At its heart, verdant Parque Céspedes is shaded by palms and tall kapok (ceiba) trees that surround a white marble statue of Manuel de Céspedes, hero of the Ten Years War.
The somber yet stately Palacio de los Capitanes Generales (Palace of the Captains-Generals) was completed in 1791 and became home to 65 governors of Cuba between 1791 and 1898. After that, it was the U.S. governor’s residence, the early seat of the Cuban government (1902-1920), and Havana’s city hall (1920-1967).
The palace is fronted by a loggia supported by Ionic columns and by “cobblewood,” laid instead of stone to soften the noise of carriages and thereby lessen the disturbance of the governor’s sleep. To the north end of the loggia is a marble statue of Fernando VII, holding a scroll of parchment that from the side appears jauntily cocked and is the butt of ribald jokes among locals.
The three-story structure surrounds a courtyard that contains a statue of Christopher Columbus by Italian sculptor Cucchiari. Arched colonnades rise on all sides. In the southeast corner, a hole containing the coffin of a nobleman is one of several graves from the old Cementerio de Espada.
Today, the palace houses the Museo de la Ciudad de la Habana (City of Havana Museum, Tacón #1, e/ Obispo y O’Reilly, tel. 07/861-5001, Tues.-Sun. 9:30am-5:30pm, last entry at 4:30pm, entrance CUC3, cameras CUC5, guide CUC5). The stairs lead up to palatially furnished rooms. The Salón del Trono (Throne Room), made for the king of Spain but never used, is of breathtaking splendor. The museum also features the Salón de las Banderas (Hall of Flags), with magnificent artwork that includes The Death of Antonio Maceo by Menocal, plus exquisite collections illustrating the story of the city’s (and Cuba’s) development and the 19th-century struggles for independence. A hour-long audio guide (Spanish only) is available Tuesdays; you’re also given a map.
The austere, quasi-Moorish, pseudo-baroque, part neoclassical Palacio del Segundo Cabo (Palace of the Second Lieutenant, O’Reilly #14, tel. 07/862-8091, Mon.-Fri. 6am-midnight) dates from 1770, when it was designed as the city post office. Later it became the home of the vice-governor general and, after independence, the seat of the Senate.
The pocket-size Castillo de la Real Fuerza (Royal Power Castle, O’Reilly #2, tel. 07/864-4488, Tues.-Sun. 9:30am-5pm, entrance CUC3, cameras CUC5), on the northeast corner of the plaza, was begun in 1558 and completed in 1577. It’s the oldest of the four forts that guarded the New World’s most precious harbor. Built in medieval fashion, with walls 6 meters wide and 10 meters tall, the castle forms a square with enormous triangular bulwarks at the corners, their sharp angles slicing the dark waters of the moat. It was almost useless from a strategic point of view, being landlocked far from the mouth of the harbor channel and hemmed in by surrounding buildings that would have formed a great impediment to its cannons in any attack. The governors of Cuba lived here until 1762.
Visitors enter via a courtyard full of cannons and mortars. Note the royal coat of arms carved in stone above the massive gateway as you cross the moat by a drawbridge.
The castle houses the not-to-be-missed Museo de Navegación (Naval Museum), displaying treasures from the golden age when the riches of the Americas flowed to Spain. The air-conditioned Sala de Tesoro gleams with gold bars and coins, plus precious jewels, bronze astrolabes, and silver reales (“pieces of eight”). The jewel in the crown is a four-meter interactive scale model of the Santisima Trinidad galleon, built in Havana 1767-1770 and destroyed at the Battle of Trafalgar.
A cylindrical bell tower rising from the northwest corner is topped by a bronze weathervane called La Giraldilla de la Habana showing a voluptuous figure with hair braided in thick ropes; in her right hand she holds a palm tree and in her left a cross. This figure is the official symbol of Havana. The vane is a copy; the original, which now resides in the foyer, was cast in 1631 in honor of Isabel de Bobadilla, the wife of Governor Hernando de Soto, the tireless explorer who fruitlessly searched for the fountain of youth in Florida. De Soto named his wife governor in his absence—the only female governor ever to serve in Cuba. For four years she scanned the horizon in vain for his return.
Immediately east of the castle, at the junction of Avenida del Puerto and O’Reilly, is an obelisk to the 77 Cuban seamen killed during World War II by German submarines.
Castillo de la Real Fuerza
A charming copy of a Doric temple, El Templete (The Pavilion, daily 9:30am-5pm, CUC1.50 including guide) stands on the northeast corner of the Plaza de Armas. It was inaugurated on March 19, 1828, on the site where the first mass and town council meeting were held in 1519, beside a massive ceiba tree. The original ceiba was felled by a hurricane in 1828 and replaced by a column fronted by a small bust of Christopher Columbus. A ceiba has since been replanted and today shades the tiny temple; its interior features a wall-to-ceiling triptych depicting the first mass, the council meeting, and El Templete’s inauguration. In the center of the room sits a bust of the artist, Jean-Baptiste Vermay (1786-1833).
Immediately south of El Templete is the former Palacio del Conde de Santovenia (Baratillo, e/ Narciso López y Baratillo y Obispo). Its quintessentially Cuban-colonial facade is graced by a becolumned portico and, above, wrought-iron railings on balconies whose windows boast stained-glass mediopuntos. The conde (count) in question was famous for hosting elaborate parties, most notoriously a three-day bash in 1833 to celebrate the accession to the throne of Isabel II that climaxed with the ascent of a gaily decorated gas-filled balloon. Later that century it served as a hotel. Today it’s the Hotel Santa Isabel (tel. 07/860-8201). President Carter stayed here during his visit to Havana in 2002.
On the south side of the plaza, the Museo Nacional de Historia Natural (Natural History Museum, Obispo #61, e/ Oficios y Baratillo, tel. 07/863-9361, museo@mnhnc.inf.cu, Tues. 1:30pm-5pm, Wed.-Sun. 10am-5:30pm, CUC3) covers evolution in a well-conceived display. The museum houses collections of Cuban flora and fauna—many in clever reproductions of their natural environments—plus stuffed tigers, apes, and other beasts from around the world. Children will appreciate the interactive displays.
Immediately east, the Biblioteca Provincial de la Habana (Havana Provincial Library, tel. 07/862-9035, Mon.-Fri. 8:15am-7pm, Sat. 8:15am-4:30pm, Sun. 8:15am-1pm) once served as the U.S. Embassy.
The Depósito del Automóvil (Depository of Automobiles, Oficios #13, tel. 07/863-9942, automovil@bp.patrimonio.ohc.cu, Tues.-Sat. 9:30am-5pm, Sun. 9am-1pm, entrance CUC1:50, cameras CUC2, videos CUC10), 50 meters south of Plaza de Armas, includes an eclectic range of 30 antique automobiles—from a 1905 Cadillac to singer Benny More’s 1953 MGA and revolutionary leader Camilo Cienfuegos’s 1959 mint Oldsmobile. Classic Harley-Davidson motorcycles are also exhibited.
Across the street, the Casa de los Árabes (Arabs’ House, Oficios #12, tel. 07/861-5868, Tues.-Sat. 9am-4:30pm, Sun. 9am-1pm, free), comprising two Moorish-inspired 17th-century mansions, and is the only place in Havana where Muslims can practice the Islamic faith (the prayer hall is decorated with hardwoods inlaid with mother-of-pearl). It houses a small museum dedicated to Levantine immigrants.
Cobbled Plaza de San Francisco, two blocks south of Plaza de Armas, at Oficios and the foot of Amargura, faces onto Avenida del Puerto. During the 16th century the area was the waterfront of the early colonial city. Iberian emigrants disembarked, slaves were unloaded, and galleons were replenished and treasure fleets loaded for the passage to Spain. A market developed on the plaza, which became the focus of the annual Fiesta de San Francisco each October 3, when a gambling fair was established. At its heart is the Fuente de los Leones (Fountain of the Lions) by Giuseppe Gaggini, erected in 1836.
Pedestrians-only Calle Obispo links Plaza de Armas with Parque Central and is Habana Vieja’s busiest shopping street.
Begin at Plaza Albear and walk east. Fifty meters on your left you’ll pass the Infotur office. Crossing Calle Havana, five blocks east of Plaza Albear, you arrive at Havana’s erstwhile “Wall Street,” centered on Calles Obispo, Cuba, and Aguiar, where the main banks were concentrated prior to the Revolution. The Museo Numismático (Coin Museum, Obispo, e/ Habana y Aguiar, tel. 07/861-5811, Tues.-Sat. 9am-4:45pm, Sun. 9:30am-5pm, CUC1) displays a broad-ranging collection of coins and banknotes spanning the Greco, Roman, and Phoenician epochs, as well as Spanish coins plus Cuban money from the republican era. Across the street is the Museo 28 de Septiembre (Obispo #310, tel. 07/864-3253, daily 9am-5:30pm, CUC2), a dour museum telling the history of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution.
Continue one block to Drogería Johnson (Obispo #361, tel. 7/862-3057, daily 9am-5pm), an ancient apothecary that still operates as a pharmacy.
At the corner of Calle Cuba you reach the former Banco Nacional de Cuba (Obispo #211, esq. Cuba), in a splendid neoclassical building fronted by fluted Corinthian columns; it is occupied by the Ministerio de Finanzas y Precios (Ministry of Finance and Prices). Beyond, don’t miss the Museo y Farmacia Taquechel (Obispo #155, esq. Aguiar, tel. 07/862-9286, daily 9am-6pm, free), another fascinating and dusty old apothecary with mixing vases, mortars and pestles, and colorful ceramic jars full of herbs and potions.
Across the street, on the north side of Obispo, is the Edificio Santo Domingo, a looming contemporary building occupying the site of the Convento de Santo Domingo, which between 1727 and 1902 housed the original University of Havana. The building has been remodeled with a replica of the original baroque doorway and campanile containing the original bell. The building today houses the Museo de la Universidad (Calle O’Reilly, no tel., Tues.-Sat. 9:30am-5pm, Sun. 9:30am-1pm), displaying miscellany related to the early university.
Fifty meters beyond Museo y Farmacia Taquechel you’ll arrive at the rose-pink Hotel Ambos Mundos (Obispo #153, esq. Mercaderes, tel. 07/860-9530), dating from 1925. Off and on throughout the 1930s, Hemingway laid his head in room 511, where he wrote The Green Hills of Africa and Death in the Afternoon. The room is today a museum (daily 10am-5pm, CUC2). Hemingway’s quarters has been preserved, with furnishings from his home, Finca Vigía, including his typewriter.
Calle Obispo
One block farther brings you to a 50-meter-long cobbled pedestrian section and the oldest mansion in Havana: The Casa del Agua la Tinaja (Obispo #111) sells mineral water (CUC0.25 a glass). The Museo de la Orfebrería (Museum of Silverwork, Obispo #113, tel. 07/863-9861, Tues.-Sat. 9:30am-5pm, Sun. 9:30am-1pm, free) is crammed with silver and gold ornaments from the colonial era, including a splendid collection of swords and firearms. Next door, the Museo de Pintura Mural (Painted Mural Museum, Obispo #119, tel. 07/864-2354, Tues.-Sat. 9:30am-5:30pm, Sun. 9:30am-1pm), displays colonial murals, plus a quitrin (traditional low-slung, horse-drawn cart of the colonial nobility).
Another 50 meters brings you to Plaza de Armas.
The five-story neoclassical building on the north side is the Lonja del Comercio (Goods Exchange, Amargura #2, esq. Oficios, tel. 07/866-9588, Mon.-Sat. 9am-6pm), dating from 1907, when it was built as a center for commodities trading. Restored, it houses offices of international corporations, news bureaus, and tour companies. The dome is crowned by a bronze figure of the god Mercury.
Behind the Lonja del Comercio, entered by a wrought-iron archway topped by a most-uncommunist fairytale crown, is the Jardín Diana de Gales (Baratillo, esq. Carpinetti, daily 9am-6pm), a park unveiled in 2000 in memory of Diana, Princess of Wales. The three-meter-tall column is by acclaimed Cuban artist Alfredo Sosabravo. There’s also an engraved Welsh slate and stone plaque from Althorp, Diana’s childhood home, donated by the British Embassy.
The garden backs onto the Casa de los Esclavos (Obrapía, esq. Av. del Puerto), a slave-merchant’s home that now serves as the principal office of the city historian.
Dominating the plaza on the south side, the Iglesia y Convento de San Francisco de Asís (Oficios, e/ Amargura y Brasil, tel. 07/862-9683, daily 9am-5:30pm, entrance CUC2, guide CUC1, cameras CUC2, videos CUC10) was launched in 1719 and completed in 1730 in baroque style with a 40-meter bell tower. The church was eventually proclaimed a basilica, serving as Havana’s main church, and it was from here that the processions of the Vía Crucis (Procession of the Cross) departed every Lenten Friday, ending at the Iglesia del Santo Cristo del Buen Vieja. The devout passed down Calle Amargura (Street of Bitterness), where Stations of the Cross were set up at street corners.
The basilica and adjoining convent reopened in October 1994 after a complete restoration. The main nave, with its towering roof supported by 12 columns, each topped by an apostle, features a trompe l’oeil that extends the perspective of the nave. The sumptuously adorned altars are gone, replaced by a huge crucifix suspended above a grand piano. (The cathedral serves as a concert hall, with classical music performances hosted 6pm Sat. and 11am Sun. Sept.-June.) Aristocrats were buried in the crypt; some skeletons can be seen through clear plastic set into the floor. Climb the campanile (CUC1) for a panoramic view.
The nave opens to the cloisters of a convent that today contains the Museo de Arte Religioso, featuring religious silver icons.
A life-size bronze statue (by José Villa Soberón) of an erstwhile and once-renowned tramp known as El Caballero de París (Gentleman of Paris) graces the sidewalk in front of the cathedral entrance. Many Cubans believe that touching his beard will bring good luck.
On the basilica’s north side is a garden—Jardín Madre Teresa de Calcuta—dedicated to Mother Theresa. It contains a small Iglesia Ortodoxa Griega, a Greek Orthodox church, opened in 2004.
Facing the cathedral, cobbled Calle Oficios is lined with 17th-century colonial buildings that possess a marked Mudejar style, exemplified by their wooden balconies. Many of the buildings have been converted into art galleries, including Galería de Carmen Montilla Tinoco (Oficios #162, tel. 07/866-8768, Mon.-Sat. 9am-5pm, free); only the front of the house remains, but the architects have made creative use of the empty shell. Next door, Estudio Galería Los Oficios (Oficios #166, tel. 07/863-0497, Mon.-Sat. 9:30am-5pm, Sun. 9am-1pm, free) displays works by renowned artist Nelson Domínguez.
Midway down the block, cobbled Calle Brasil extends west about 80 meters to Plaza Vieja. Portions of the original colonial-era aqueduct (the Zanja Real) are exposed. Detour to visit the Aqvarium (Brasil #9, tel. 07/863-9493, Tues.-Sat. 9am-5pm, Sun. 9am-1pm, CUC1, children free), displaying tropical fish. Next door, La Casa Cubana del Perfume (Brasil #13, tel. 07/866-3759, Mon.-Sat. 10am-7pm, Sun. 10am-1pm) displays colonial-era distilleries, has aromatherapy demos, and sells handmade perfumes made on-site.
Back on Oficios, the former Casa de Don Lorenzo Montalvo today houses a convent and the Hostal Convento de Santa Brígida. Opposite the hotel, the Sala Teatro de la Orden Tres hosts performances by La Colmenita, a children’s theater troupe. To its side, the Coche Presidencial Mambí railway carriage (Mon.-Fri. 8:30am-4:45pm, CUC1) stands on rails at Oficios and Churruca. It served as the official presidential carriage of five presidents, beginning in 1902 with Tomás Estrada Palma. Its polished hardwood interior gleams with brass fittings.
Immediately east is the Museo Palacio de Gobierno (Government Palace Museum, Oficios #211, esq. Muralla, tel. 07/863-4358, Tues.-Sat. 9:30am-5pm, Sun. 9:30am-1pm). This 19th-century neoclassical building housed the Cámara de Representantes (Chamber of Representatives) during the early republic. Later it served as the Ministerio de Educación (1929-1960) and, following the Revolution, housed the Poder Popular Municipal (Havana’s local government office). Today it has uniforms, documents, and other items relating to its past use, and the office of the President of the Senate is maintained with period furniture. The interior lobby is striking for its magnificent stained-glass skylight.
Museo Palacio de Gobierno
The Tienda Museo el Reloj (Watch Museum, Oficios, esq. Muralla, tel. 07/864-9515, Mon.-Sat. 10am-7pm, Sun. 10am-1pm) doubles as a watch and clock museum, a deluxe store selling watches and pens made by Cuervo y Sobrinos (a Swiss-Italian company that began life in Cuba in 1882), and a classy café.
On the southeast side of Oficios and Muralla is Casa Alejandro Von Humboldt (Oficios #254, tel. 07/863-1144, Tues.-Sat. 9am-5pm, Sun. 9am-noon, CUC1), a museum dedicated to the German explorer (1769-1854) who lived here while investigating Cuba in 1800-1801.
The Fundación Destilería Havana Club, or Museo del Ron (Museum of Rum, Av. San Pedro #262, e/ Muralla y Sol, tel. 07/861-8051, www.havanaclubfoundation.com, Mon.-Sat. 9:30am-5:30pm, Sun. 10am-4pm, CUC7 including guide and drink), two blocks south of Plaza de San Francisco, occupies the former harborfront colonial mansion of the Conde de la Mortera. It’s a must-see and provides an introduction to the manufacture of Cuban rum. Your tour begins with an audiovisual presentation. Exhibits include a mini-cooperage, pailes (sugar boiling pots), wooden trapiches (sugarcane presses), and salas dedicated to an exposition on sugarcane, and to the colonial sugar mills where the cane was pressed and the liquid processed. An operating mini-production unit replete with bubbling vats and copper stills demonstrates the process. The highlight is a model of an early-20th-century sugar plantation at 1:22.5 scale, complete with working steam locomotives.
Hemingway once favored Dos Hermanos (Av. San Pedro #304, esq. Sol, tel. 07/861-3514), a simple bar immediately south of the museum.
Opened in October 2008 immediately south of Dos Hermanos bar, the beautiful, gleaming white Sacra Catedral Ortodoxa Rusa (Russian Orthodox Cathedral, Av. del Puerto and Calle San Pedro, daily 9am-5:45pm), officially the Iglesia Virgen de María de Kazan, whisks you allegorically to Moscow with its bulbous, golden minarets. No photos are allowed inside, where a gold altar and chandeliers hang above gray marble floors. Exquisite!
Sacra Catedral Ortodoxa Rusa
The last of the four main squares to be laid out in Habana Vieja, Plaza Vieja (Old Square, bounded by Calles Mercaderes, San Ignacio, Brasil, and Muralla) originally hosted a covered market. It is surrounded by mansions and apartment blocks where in colonial times residents looked down on executions and bullfights.
Last century the square sank into disrepair. Today it is in the final stages of restoration. Even the white Carrara marble fountain—an exact replica of the original by Italian sculptor Giorgio Massari—has reappeared. Until recently, most buildings housed tenement apartments; tenants have moved out as the buildings have metamorphosed into boutiques, restaurants, museums, and luxury apartments for foreign residents.
Various modern sculptures grace the park, including, at the southeast corner, a bronze figure of a bald naked woman riding a rooster, by Roberto Fabelo.
The tallest building is the Edificio Gómez Villa, on the northeast corner. Take the elevator to the top for views over the plaza and to visit the Cámara Oscura (daily 9am-5:30pm, CUC2). The optical reflection camera revolves 360 degrees, projecting a real-time picture of Havana at 30 times the magnification onto a two-meter-wide parabola housed in a completely darkened room.
The shaded arcade along the plaza’s east side leads past the Casa de Juan Rico de Mata, today the headquarters of Fototeca (Mercaderes #307, tel. 07/862-2530, fototeca@cubarte.cult.cu, Tues.-Sat. 10am-5pm), the state-run agency that promotes the work of Cuban photographers. It hosts photo exhibitions. Note the ceramic wall mural designed by Amelia Peláez.
Next door, the Planetario Habana (Mercaderes #309, tel. 07/864-9544, shows Wed.-Sat. 10am, 11am, 12:30pm, and 3:30pm, Sun. 10am and 11am; CUC10 adults, children below 12 free) delights visitors with its high-tech interactive exhibitions on space science and technology. A scale model of the solar system spirals around the sun, which serves as a 66-seat theater.
The old Palacio Vienna Hotel (also called the Palacio Cueto), on the southeast corner of Plaza Vieja, is a phenomenal piece of Gaudí-esque art nouveau architecture dating from 1906. It is being restored as a deluxe hotel.
On the southeast corner, the Casa de Marqués de Prado Amero today houses the Museo de Naipes (Museum of Playing Cards, Muralla #101, tel. 07/860-1534, Tues.-Sat. 9:30am-5pm, Sun. 9am-2:30pm, entrance by donation), displaying playing cards through the ages.
The 18th-century Casa de los Condes de Jaruco (House of the Counts of Jaruco, Muralla #107), or “La Casona,” on the southeast corner, was built between 1733 and 1737 by the father of the future Count of Jaruco and is highlighted by mammoth doors opening into a cavernous courtyard surrounded by lofty archways festooned with hanging vines. It hosts offices of the Fondo Cubano de Bienes Culturales (Cultural Property Fund, tel. 07/860-8577). Art galleries occupy downstairs (Tues.-Sat. 9am-5pm).
Plaza Vieja at night
On the plaza’s southwest corner, cross San Ignacio and follow Muralla half a block to the Tienda El Soldadito de Plomo (Muralla #164, Mon.-Fri. 9am-6pm, Sat. 9am-1:30pm), selling miniature soldiers made of lead! A large glass window lets you watch artists painting the pieces.
Back on the plaza, cool off with a chilled beer brewed on-site in the Factoría de Plaza Vieja (San Ignacio #364, tel. 07/866-4453, daily 11am-1am), in the former Casa del Conde de Casa Lombillo. The copper stills are displayed in the main bar, where a 1913 Ford delivery truck now sits and artworks by such famous Cuban artists as Kcho and Nelson Domínguez are displayed.
The Casa del Conde de San Estéban de Cañongo (San Ignacio #356, tel. 07/868-3561, Mon.-Fri. 9:30am-5:30pm, Sat. 9:30am-1pm) is today a cultural center. Adjoining, on the northwest corner of the plaza, is the Casa de las Hermanas Cárdenas, housing the Centro de Desarollo de Artes Visuales (San Ignacio #352, tel. 07/862-2611, Tues.-Sat. 10am-6pm). The inner courtyard is dominated by an intriguing sculpture by Alfredo Sosabravo. Art education classes are given on the second floor. The top story has an art gallery.
Well worth the side trip is Hotel Raquel (San Ignacio, esq. Amargura, tel. 07/860-8280), one block north of the plaza. This restored hotel is an art deco and neoclassical jewel.
Physicians and scientists inclined to a busman’s holiday might walk one block west and one north of the plaza and check out the Museo Histórico de las Ciencias Naturales Carlos Finlay (Museum of Natural History, Cuba #460, e/ Amargura y Brasil, tel. 07/863-4824, Mon.-Fri. 9am-5pm, Sat. 9am-3pm, CUC2). Dating from 1868 and once the headquarters of the Academy of Medical, Physical, and Natural Sciences, today it contains a pharmaceutical collection and tells the tales of Cuban scientists’ discoveries and innovations. The Cuban scientist Dr. Finlay is honored, of course; it was he who on August 14, 1881, discovered that yellow fever is transmitted by the Aedes aegipti mosquito. The museum also contains, on the third floor, a reconstructed period pharmacy.
Adjoining the museum to the north, the Convento y Iglesia de San Francisco el Nuevo (Cuba, esq. Amargura, tel. 07/861-8490, Mon.-Thurs. 9am-6pm, Sun. 8am-1pm, free) was completed in 1633 for the Augustine friars. It was consecrated anew in 1842, when it was given to the Franciscans, who then rebuilt it in renaissance style in 1847. The church has a marvelous domed altar and nave.
The mostly residential and dilapidated southern half of Habana Vieja, south of Calle Brasil, was the ecclesiastical center of Havana during the colonial era and is studded with churches and convents. This was also Havana’s Jewish quarter.
Southern Habana Vieja is enclosed by Avenida del Puerto, which swings along the harborfront and becomes Avenida San Pedro, then Avenida Leonor Pérez, then Avenida Desamparados as it curves around to Avenida de Bélgica (colloquially called Egido). The waterfront boulevard is overshadowed by warehouses. Here were the old P&O docks where the ships from Miami and Key West used to dock and where Pan American World Airways had its terminal when it was still flying the old clipper flying-boats.
Egido follows the hollow once occupied by Habana Vieja’s ancient walls. It is a continuation of Monserrate and flows downhill to the harbor. The Puerta de la Tenaza (Egido, esq. Fundición) is the only ancient city gate still standing; a plaque inset in the wall shows a map of the city walls as they once were. About 100 meters south, on Avenida de Puerto, the Monumento Mártires del Vapor La Coubre is made of twisted metal fragments of La Coubre, the French cargo ship that exploded in Havana harbor on March 4, 1960 (the vessel was carrying armaments for the Castro government). The monument honors the seamen who died in the explosion.
Egido is lined with once-beautiful mid-19th-century buildings, now dilapidated. Egido’s masterpiece is the Estación Central de Ferrocarril (esq. Arsenal), or Terminal de Trenes, Havana’s railway station. Designed in 1910, it blends Spanish Revival and Italian Renaissance styles and features twin towers displaying the shields of Havana and Cuba (and a clock permanently frozen at 5:20). It is built atop the former Spanish naval shipyard.
On the station’s north side, the small, shady Parque de los Agrimensores (Park of the Surveyors) features a remnant of the Cortina de la Habana, the old city wall. The park is now populated by steam trains retired from hauling sugar cane (the oldest dates from 1878).
The birthplace of the nation’s preeminent national hero, Museo Casa Natal de José Martí (Leonor Pérez #314, esq. Av. de Bélgica, tel. 07/861-3778, Tues.-Sat. 9am-5pm, entrance CUC1, guide CUC1, cameras CUC2, videos CUC10) sits one block south of the railway station at the end of a street named after Martí’s mother. The national hero and leader of the independence movement was born on January 28, 1853, in this simple house with terra-cotta tile floors. The house displays many of his personal effects, including an escritorio (writing desk) and even a lock of Martí’s hair from when he was a child.
Plaza del Cristo lies at the west end of Amargura, between Lamparilla and Brasil, one block east of Avenida de Bélgica (Monserrate). It was here that Wormold, the vacuum-cleaner salesman turned secret agent, was “swallowed up among the pimps and lottery sellers of the Havana noon” in Graham Greene’s Our Man in Havana. Wormold and his daughter, Millie, lived at the fictional 37 Lamparilla.
The plaza is dominated by the tiny Iglesia de Santo Cristo Buen Vieja (Villegas, e/ Amargura y Lamparilla, tel. 07/863-1767, daily 9am-noon), dating from 1732, but with a Franciscan hermitage—called Humilladero chapel—dating from 1640. Buen Viaje was the final point of the Vía Crucis (the Procession of the Cross) held each Lenten Friday and beginning at the Iglesia de San Francisco de Asís. The church, named for its popularity among sailors, who pray here for safe voyages, has an impressive cross-beamed wooden ceiling and exquisite altars, including one to the Virgen de la Caridad showing three boatmen being saved from the tempest.
The handsome Iglesia y Convento de Santa Teresa de Jesús (Brasil, esq. Compostela, tel. 07/861-1445), two blocks east of Plaza del Cristo, was built by the Carmelites in 1705. The church is still in use, although the convent ceased to operate as such in 1929, when the nuns were moved out and the building was converted into a series of homes.
Across the road is the Drogería Sarrá (Brasil, e/ Compostela y Habana, tel. 07/866-7554, daily 9am-5pm, free), a fascinating apothecary—now the Museo de la Farmacia Habanera—with paneled cabinets still stocked with herbs and pharmaceuticals in colorful old bottles and ceramic jars.
The Iglesia y Convento de Nuestra Señora de Belén (Church and Convent of Our Lady of Bethlehem, Compostela y Luz, tel. 07/860-3150, Mon.-Sat. 10am-4pm, Sun. 9am-1pm, free; visits only with a pre-arranged guide with Agencia San Cristóbal), the city’s largest religious complex, occupies an entire block. The convent, completed in 1718, was built to house the first nuns to arrive in Havana and later served as a refuge for convalescents. In 1842, Spanish authorities ejected the religious order and turned the church into a government office before making it over to the Jesuits. They in turn established a college for the sons of the aristocracy. The Jesuits were the nation’s official weather forecasters and in 1858 erected the Observatorio Real (Royal Observatory) atop the tower. It was in use until 1925. The church and convent are linked to contiguous buildings across the street by an arched walkway—the Arco de Belén (Arch of Bethlehem)—spanning Acosta.
The Iglesia y Convento de Santa Clara de Asís (Convent of Saint Clair of Assisi, Cuba #610, e/ Luz y Sol, tel. 07/866-9327, closed for restoration at last visit), two blocks east of Belén, is a massive former nunnery completed in 1644. The nuns moved out in 1922. It is a remarkable building, with a lobby full of beautiful period pieces. The cloistered courtyard is surrounded by columns. Note the 17th-century fountain of a Samaritan woman, and the beautiful cloister roof carved with geometric designs—a classic alfarje—in the Salón Plenario, a marble-floored hall of imposing stature. Wooden carvings abound. The second cloister contains the so-called Sailor’s House, built by a wealthy ship owner for his daughter, whom he failed to dissuade from a life of asceticism.
The Iglesia Parroquial del Espíritu Santo (Parish Church of the Holy Ghost, Acosta #161, esq. Cuba, tel. 07/862-3410, Mon.-Fri. 8:30am-4pm), two blocks south of Santa Clara de Asís, is Havana’s oldest church, dating from 1638 (the circa-1674 central nave and facade, as well as the circa-1720 Gothic vault, are later additions), when it was a hermitage for the devotions of free blacks. Later, King Charles III granted the right of asylum here to anyone hunted by the authorities, a privilege no longer bestowed.
The church’s many surprises include a gilded, carved wooden pelican in a niche in the baptistry. The sacristy, where parish archives dating back through the 17th century are preserved, boasts an enormous cupboard full of baroque silver staffs and incense holders. Catacombs to the left of the nave are held up by subterranean tree trunks. You can explore the eerie vault that runs under the chapel, with the niches still containing the odd bone. Steps lead up to the bell tower.
Iglesia y Convento de Nuestra Señora de la Merced (Our Lady of Mercy, Cuba #806, esq. Merced, tel. 07/863-8873, daily 8am-noon and 3pm-6pm) is Havana’s most impressive church, thanks to its ornate interior multiple dome paintings and walls entirely painted in early-20th-century religious frescoes. The church, begun in 1755, has strong Afro-Cuban connections (the Virgin of Mercy is also Obatalá, goddess of earth and purity), drawing devotees of Santería. Each September 24, scores of worshippers cram in for the Virgen de la Merced’s feast day. More modest celebrations are held on the 24th of every other month.
The 100-meter-long Alameda de Paula promenade runs alongside the waterfront boulevard between Luz and Leonor Pérez. It is lined with marble and iron street lamps. Midway along the Alameda stands a carved column with a fountain at its base, erected in 1847 in homage to the Spanish navy. It bears an unlikely Irish name: Columna O’Donnell, for the Capitán-General of Cuba, Leopoldo O’Donnell, who dedicated the monument. It is covered in relief work on a military theme and crowned by a lion with the arms of Spain in its claws.
At the southern end of the Alameda, Iglesia de San Francisco de Paula (San Ignacio y Leonor Pérez, tel. 07/860-4210, daily 9am-5pm) studs circular Plazuela de Paula. The quaint, restored church features marvelous artworks including stained-glass pieces. It is used for baroque and chamber concerts.
The Centro Cultural Almacenes de San José (Av. Desamparados at San Ignacio, tel. 07/864-7793, daily 10am-6pm), or Feria de la Artesanía—the city’s main arts and crafts market—today occupies a former waterfront warehouse. Several antique steam trains sit on rails outside.
Several other derelict wharfs are being rehabilitated. In March 2014, Antiguo Almacén de Madera y el Tabaco (daily noon-midnight), adjacent to the market, opened as a beer hall with on-site brewery and a 27-meter-long bar plus flamenco stage.
Laid out in a near-perfect grid, mostly residential Centro Habana (Central Havana, pop. 175,000) lies west of the Paseo de Martí and south of the Malecón. The 19th-century region evolved following demolition of the city walls in 1863. Prior, it had served as a glacis. The buildings are deep and tall, of four or five stories, built mostly as apartment units. Hence, the population and street life are dense. Many houses are in a tumbledown state, and barely a month goes by without at least one building collapse.
The major west-east thoroughfares are the Malecón to the north and Zanja and Avenida Salvador Allende through the center, plus Calles Neptuno and San Rafael between the Malecón and Zanja. Three major thoroughfares run perpendicular, north-south: Calzada de Infanta, forming the western boundary; Padre Varela, down the center; and Avenida de Italia (Galiano), farther east.
In prerevolutionary days, Centro Habana hosted Havana’s red-light district, and prostitutes roamed such streets as the ill-named Calle Virtudes (Virtues). Neptuno and San Rafael formed the retail heart of the city. In recent years, they have regained some of their life and the famous department stores of prerevolutionary days have reopened; many still bear neon signs promoting U.S. brand names from yesteryear.
Caution is required, as snatch-and-grabs and muggings are common.
Officially known as Avenida Antonio Maceo, and more properly the Muro de Malecón (literally “embankment,” or “seawall”), Havana’s seafront boulevard winds dramatically along the Atlantic shoreline between the Castillo de San Salvador de la Punta and the Río Almendares. The six-lane seafront boulevard was designed as a jetty wall in 1857 by Cuban engineer Francisco de Albear but not laid out until 1902, by U.S. governor General Woods. It took 50 years to reach the Río Almendares, almost five miles to the west.
The Malecón is lined with once-glorious high-rise houses, each exuberantly distinct from the next. Unprotected by seaworthy paint since the Revolution, they have proven incapable of withstanding the salt spray that crashes over the seawall. Many buildings have already collapsed, and an ongoing restoration seems to make little headway against the elements.
All along the shore are the worn remains of square baths—known as the “Elysian Fields”—hewn from the rocks below the seawall, originally with separate areas for men, women, and blacks. These Baños del Mar preceded construction of the Malecón. Each is about four meters square and two meters deep, with rock steps for access and a couple of portholes through which the waves wash in and out.
The Malecón offers a microcosm of Havana life: the elderly walking their dogs; the shiftless selling cigars and cheap sex to tourists; the young passing rum among friends; fishers tending their lines and casting off on giant inner tubes (neumáticos); and always, scores of couples courting and necking. The Malecón is known as “Havana’s sofa” and acts, wrote Claudia Lightfoot, as “the city’s drawing room, office, study, and often bedroom.”
The Malecón—the setting for spontaneous riots in the early 1990s—is also a barometer of the political state of Havana. During times of tension, the police presence is abnormally strong and the Malecón becomes eerily empty.
Every October 26, schoolchildren throw flowers over the seawall in memory of revolutionary leader Camilo Cienfuegos, killed in an air crash on that day in 1959.
Dominating the Malecón to the west, at the foot of Avenida Padre Varela, is the massive bronze Monumento Antonio Maceo, atop a marble base in a plaza with a fountain. The classical monument was erected in 1916 in honor of the mulatto general and hero of the wars of independence who was known as the “Bronze Titan.” The motley tower that stands at the west end of the plaza is the 17th-century Torreón de San Lázaro. Although it looks fairly modern, it was built in 1665 to guard the former cove of San Lázaro.
To the south, the Hospital Hermanos Almeijeiras looms over the park; its basement forms Cuba’s “Fort Knox.” The Convento y Capilla de la Inmaculada Concepción (San Lázaro #805, e/ Oquendo y Lucena, tel. 07/878-8404, Mon.-Sun. 9am-5pm) is immediately west of the hospital. This beautiful church and convent was built in Gothic style in 1874 and features notable stained-glass windows and a painted altar.
Immediately west of the Plaza Antonio Maceo, a triangular area bordered roughly by the Malecón, San Lázaro, and Calzada de Infanta forms the northwest corner of Centro Habana. Known as Barrio Cayo Hueso, the region dates from the early 20th century, when tenement homes were erected atop what had been the Espada cemetery (hence the name, Cay of Bones). Its several art deco inspirations include the Edificio Solimar (Soledad #205, e/ San Lázaro y Ánimas) apartment complex, built in 1944.
The pseudo-castle at the corner of Calle 25 and the Malecón was before the Revolution the Casa Marina, Havana’s most palatial brothel.
Hallowed ground to Cubans, the tiny Museo Fragua Martiana (Museum of Martí’s Forging, Principe #108, esq. Hospital, tel. 07/870-7338, Mon.-Fri. 9am-4pm, Sat. 9am-noon, free) occupies the site of the former San Lázaro quarry, where national hero José Martí and fellow prisoners were forced to break rocks. The museum displays manuscripts and shackles. To its rear, the quarry has been turned into a garden, with a life-size bronze statue of Martí.
Every January 28 the nighttime La Marcha de las Antorchas (March of the Torches) takes place to celebrate Martí’s birthday. Thousands of students and others walk with lit torches from the university to the Fragua Martiana.
Almost every dance enthusiast in the know gravitates to Callejón de Hamel (e/ Aramburu y Hospital) on Sunday for Afro-Cuban rumbas in an alley adorned by local artist Salvador González Escalona with evocative murals in sun-drenched yellow, burnt orange, and blazing reds, inspired by Santería. The alley features a Santería shrine and fantastical totemic sculptures. González, a bearded artist with an eye for self-promotion, has an eclectic gallery, Estudio-Galería Fambá (Callejón de Hamel #1054, tel. 07/878-1661, eliasasef@yahoo.es, daily 9:30am-6pm). Alas, hustlers abound.
Parque de los Mártires Universitarios (Infanta, e/ Calles Jovellar y San Lázaro), one block west of Callejón de Hamel, honors students who lost their lives during the fights against the Machado and Batista regimes.
“Salvador’s Alley”
Soaring over Calzada de Infanta, about 100 meters south of San Lázaro, Convento y Iglesia del Carmen (Infanta, e/ Neptuno y Concordia, tel. 07/878-5168, Mon.-Sat. 8am-10am and 4pm-7pm, Sun. 7:30am-12:30pm and 4:30pm-7:30pm) is one of Havana’s largest and most impressive churches. Built in baroque fashion, the church is capped by a 60.5-meter-tall tower topped by a sculpture of Our Lady of Carmen.
This boulevard, lined with arcaded porticos, runs south from the Malecón to Avenida Salvador Allende and is Centro’s main north-south artery.
The Hotel Lincoln (Galiano, e/ Ánimas y Virtudes) was where Argentina’s world-champion race-car driver Fangio was kidnapped by Castro’s revolutionaries in 1958 during the Cuban Grand Prix. Room 810 is today the Museo de Juan Manuel Fangio (open when not occupied), presenting a predictably one-sided version of the affair.
Cine América (Galiano #253, esq. Concordia, tel. 07/862-5416) dates from 1941 and is one of the world’s great art deco theaters, albeit severely deteriorated. The foyer features a terrazzo floor inlaid with zodiac motifs and a map of the world, with Cuba at the center in polished brass. Catercorner, the rarely open Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de Monserrate dates from 1843.
Literature buffs might detour to Museo Lezama Lima (Trocadero #162, e/ Crespo y Industria, tel. 07/863-3774, Tues.-Sat. 9am-6pm, Sun. 9am-1pm, entrance CUC2, guide CUC1), four blocks east of Galiano, in the former home of writer José Lezama Lima. The novelist is most famous for Paradiso, an autobiographical, sexually explicit, homoerotic baroque novel that viewed Cuba as a “paradise lost.” Lima fell afoul of Fidel Castro and became a recluse until his death in 1975.
The first Chinese immigrants to Cuba arrived in 1847 as indentured laborers. Over ensuing decades, as many as 150,000 Chinese may have arrived to work the fields. They were contracted to labor for eight years for miserable wages insufficient to buy their return. Most stayed, and many intermarried with blacks. The Sino-Cuban descendants of those who worked off their indenture gravitated to Centro Habana, where they settled in the zones bordering the Zanza Real, the aqueduct that channeled water to the city. They were later joined by other Chinese. In time Havana’s Chinese quarter, Barrio Chino, became the largest in Latin America—a mini-Beijing in the tropics—and in the decades preceding the Revolution evolved as a center of opium dens, brothels, and sex clubs. The vast majority of Chinese left Cuba immediately following the Revolution; those who stayed were encouraged to become “less Chinese and more Cuban.”
Today, Barrio Chino is a mere shadow of its former self, with about 2,000 descendants still resident. Approximately a dozen social associations (casinos) attempt to keep Chinese culture alive. The Casa de Artes y Tradiciones Chinas (Salud #313, e/ Gervasio y Escobar, tel. 07/863-9632) features a small gallery, and tai chi and dance classes are offered. The Casa Abuelo Lung Kong Cun Sol (Dragones #364, e/ Manrique y San Nicolás, tel. 07/862-5388) exists to support elders in the Chinese community; on the third floor, the Templo San Fan Kong has an exquisitely carved gold-plated altar.
In 1995, the government of China funded a Pórtico Chino (Dragon Gate) across Calle Dragones, between Amistad and Aguila, announcing visitors’ entry from the east.
Pedestrian-only Callejón Cuchillo (Knife Alley) is lined with Chinese restaurants and glows at night with Chinese lanterns. Ernest Hemingway used to eat at the defunct Restaurante Pacífico (San Nicolás, esq. Cuchillo), as did Fidel Castro.
Two blocks to the southwest, the Iglesia Nuestra Señora de la Caridad del Cobre (Manrique #570, esq. Salud, tel. 07/861-0945), erected in 1802, features exquisite statuary, stained glass, and gilt altar. A shrine to the Virgen del Cobre draws a steady stream of worshippers, who bring sunflowers to adorn the shine.
Soaring over Barrio Chino is the eclectic-style former headquarters of the Cuban Telephone Company, inaugurated in 1927 and at the time the tallest building in Havana. Today utilized by Etecsa, the Cuban state-owned telephone company, it hosts the impressive Museo de las Telecomunicaciones (tel. 07/860-7574, Mon.-Fri. 10am-4pm), telling the history of the telephone in Cuba and with a functional and interactive antique telephone exchange.
Avenida Simón Bolívar (formerly Avenida Reina) runs west from Parque de la Fraternidad. It is lined with once-impressive colonial-era structures gone to ruin. Beyond Avenida Padre Varela (Belascoain), the street broadens into a wide boulevard called Avenida Salvador Allende, laid out in the early 19th century (when it was known as Carlos III) by Governor Tacón.
The Gran Templo Nacional Masónico (Grand Masonic Temple, Av. Salvador Allende, e/ Padre Varela y Lucena) was established in 1951. Though no longer a Freemasons’ lodge, it retains a mural in the lobby depicting the history of Masonry in Cuba. Upstairs, reached by a marble staircase, the Museo Nacional Masónico (tel. 07/878-4795, Mon.-Fri. 2pm-6pm) has a huge and eclectic range of exhibits, from clothes, medals, and ceremonial swords to an antique steam-powered fire engine, plus busts honoring great American Masons (including George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Simón Bolívar).
One of the few structures not seemingly on its last legs, the Iglesia del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús (Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Simón Bolívar, e/ Padre Varela y Gervasio, tel. 07/862-4979, Mon.-Sat. 7:30am-6pm, Sun. 8am-noon and 3pm-6pm) is a Gothic inspiration that could have been transported from medieval England. It was built in 1922 with a beamed ceiling held aloft by great marbled columns. Gargoyles and Christian allegories adorn the exterior.
Iglesia del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús
South of Avenidas Simón Bolívar and Salvador Allende, the down-at-the-heels neighborhoods of southern Centro Habana extend to Cuatros Caminos, an all-important junction where the Mercado Agropecuario Cuatros Caminos (Four Roads Farmers Market, tel. 07/870-5934, Tues.-Sat. 7am-6:30pm, Sun. 7am-2pm) takes up an entire block between Máximo Gómez and Cristina (also called Avenida de la México), and Manglar Arroyo and Matadero. This much-dilapidated 19th-century market hall has functioned as such for two centuries and is worth a visit for its bustling ambience.
On the east side of Cristina, facing the market, is the Museo de Ferrocarril (Railway Museum, tel. 07/879-4414, Mon.-Sat. 9am-5pm, Sun. 9am-noon, entrance CUC2, camera CUC5), housed in the former Estación Cristina. You’d have to be a serious rail buff to get a thrill from the exhibits (from model trains to bells, signals, and even telegraph equipment) that tell the history of rail in Cuba. Sitting on rails in its lobby is an 1843 steam locomotive (Cuba’s first) called La Junta. Three other antique steam trains are displayed, along with various diesel locomotives.
Cigar connoisseurs the world over know the name Romeo y Julieta, a fine cigar brand made at Fábrica de Tabaco Romeo y Julieta (Romeo and Juliet Tobacco Factory, Padre Varela #852, e/ Desagüe y Peñal Verno, tel. 07/878-1059 or 07/879-3927, 9am-1pm, CUC10), five blocks northwest of Cuatro Caminos. The factory was founded in 1875 by Inocencia Álvarez and reopened for tours in 2013 after serving for several years as a cigar-rolling school. At press time it had become the temporary home of the H. Upmann brand, whose name it now bears. The facade, however, is topped by a scroll with the name “Cuesta Rey & Co.”
To the rear, decorated with Iconic columns, is the old Fábrica El Rey del Mundo (Luceña esq. Penalver, Centro Habana), today operating as the temporary Partagás cigar factory.
One block south is the Conservatorio Municipal de Habana (Padre Varela, esq. Carmen), a music conservatory boasting a well-preserved classical facade.
South of Habana Vieja and Centro the land rises gently to Cerro, which developed during the 19th century as the place to retire for the torrid midsummer months; many wealthy families maintained two homes in Havana—one in town, another on the cooler cerro (hill). The area is replete with once-stately quintas (summer homes) in neoclassical, beaux-arts, and art nouveau styles. Alas, the region is terribly deteriorated, and the majority of buildings transcend sordid.
Cerro merges east into the less-crowded municipality of Diez de Octubre, a relatively leafy and attractive residential area laid out during the 20th century comprising the district of Santo Suárez and, to its east, Luyanó.
Avenida Máximo Gómez (popularly called Monte; the name changes to Calzada de Cerro west of Infanta) snakes southwest from Parque de la Fraternidad and south of Arroyo (Avenida Manglar), connecting Habana Vieja with Cerro. During the 19th century, scores of summer homes in classical style were erected. It has been described by writer Paul Goldberger as “one of the most remarkable streets in the world: three unbroken kilometers of 19th-century neoclassical villas, with colonnaded arcades making an urban vista of heartbreaking beauty.” Heartbreaking is correct. The avenue ascends southward, marching backward into the past like a classical ruin, with once-stunning arcades and houses collapsing behind decaying facades.
One of the most splendid mansions still extant is the palatial Quinta del Conde de Santovenia, erected in 1845 in subdued neoclassical style with a 1929 neo-Gothic chapel addition. Today housing the Hogar de Ancianos Santovenia (Calzada de Cerro #1424, e/ Patria y Auditor, tel. 07/879-6072; visits by appointment Tues., Thurs., and Sat. 4pm-5pm and Sun. 10am-noon), it has served as a home for the elderly (hogar de ancianos) for more than a century. It’s run by Spanish nuns.
Rising over the south of Cerro is Estadio Latinoamericano (Consejero Aranjo y Pedro Pérez, Cerro, tel. 07/870-6526), Havana’s main baseball stadium. To its northwest is Fábrica Corona (20 de Mayo #520, e/ Marta Abreu y Línea, Cerro, tel. 07/873-0131, Mon.-Fri. 9am-11am and 1pm-3pm, CUC10 guided tours), a modern cigar factory producing Hoyo de Monterey, Punch, and other labels.
The most intriguing site is Fábrica de Ron Bocoy (Máximo Gómez #1417, e/ Patria y Auditor, tel. 07/870-5642, bocoy@tuhv.cha.cyt.cu, Mon.-Fri. 7am-5pm, Sat. 9am-3pm, free tour), a distillery that makes Legendario rums and liquors. Bocoy once manufactured the choicest rum in Cuba, intended solely for Fidel Castro to gift to notable personalities: The libation was packaged in a bulbous, earthenware bottle and set inside a miniature pirate’s treasure chest labeled La Isla del Tesoro, or Treasure Island. A small upstairs museum boasts an original 19th-century copper distillery. The vaults contain great oak casks stacked in dark recesses. Free tours are offered. The distillery occupies the former home of the counts of Villanueva. The two-tone pink facade is decorated with four dozen cast-iron swans marching wing to wing, “each standing tall and slim, its long neck bent straight down in mortal combat with an evil serpent climbing up its legs to sink its fangs,” wrote James Michener, who chose this building as a setting in his novel Caribbean. Hence the building’s colloquial nickname, Casa de Culebras (House of Snakes). The swans were a symbol of wealth that the snakes were meant to guard.
Founded in 2001, this art-focused community project spans roughly four blocks by two along Calle Aguilera southeast of Porvenir. Fourteen core residents have cleaned up their once trash-strewn neighborhood and turned the metal garbage pieces into fanciful art, such as the Arco de Triunfo—an arch made of old wheel rims. Walls have been brightened with colorful murals, including an international wall with murals by non-Cuban painters: Check out the Snoopy mural by Justin Thompson.
The HQ is El Tanque (Aguilera esq. 9 de Abril, Luyanó), a converted water tank that now hosts a performing art space and art gallery. On weekends it hosts free art workshops for adults and kids, plus a children’s street party every month. A highlight is Obelisko Amistad (Friendship Obelisk), with plaques representing differing countries; visitors are invited to circle the column and ask for peace for the world.
About 1.5 km southwest, off Avenida Porvenir, is Museo Casa Natal Camilo Cienfuegos (Calle Pocito #228 esq. Lawton, tel. 07/698-3509, Tues.-Sat. 9am-5pm, free), occupying a small house built in eclectic style in 1920 and where on February 6, 1932, was born Camilo Cienfuegos Gorriarán, who rose to be Fidel’s Chief of Staff before dying in a mysterious plane crash in 1959. Furnished with original pieces, it has five rooms dedicated to his life as a child and, later, revolutionary commander.
The municipio of Plaza de la Revolución (pop. 165,000), west of Centro Habana, comprises the leafy residential streets of Vedado and, to the southwest, the modern enclave of Nuevo Vedado and Plaza de la Revolución.
Vedado—the commercial heart of “modern” Havana—has been described as “Havana at its middle-class best.” The University of Havana is here. So are many of the city’s prime hotels and restaurants, virtually all its main commercial buildings, and block after block of handsome mansions and apartment houses in art deco, eclectic, beaux-arts, and neoclassical styles—luxurious and humble alike lining streets shaded by stately jagüeys dropping their aerial roots to the ground.
Formerly a vast open space between Centro Habana and the Río Almendares, Vedado (which means “forest reserve” or “forbidden”) served as a buffer zone in case of attack from the west; construction was prohibited. In 1859, however, plans were drawn up for urban expansion. Strict building regulations defined that there should be 15 feet of gardens between building and street, and more in wider avenidas. Regularly spaced parks were mandated. The conclusion of the Spanish-Cuban-American War in 1898 brought U.S. money rushing in. Civic structures, hotels, casinos, department stores, and restaurants sprouted alongside nightclubs.
The sprawling region is hemmed to the north by the Malecón, to the east by Calzada de Infanta, to the west by the Río Almendares, and to the southeast by the Calzada de Ayestaran and Avenida de la Independencia. Vedado follows a grid pattern laid out in quadrants. Odd-numbered streets (calles) run east-west, parallel to the shore. Even-numbered calles run perpendicular. (To confuse things, west of Paseo, calles are even-numbered; east of Paseo, calles run from A to P.) The basic grid is overlaid by a larger grid of broad boulevards (avenidas) an average of six blocks apart: Calle L to the east, and Avenida de los Presidentes, Paseo, and Avenida 12 farther west.
Dividing the quadrants east-west is Calle 23, which rises (colloquially) as La Rampa from the Malecón at its junction with Calzada de Infanta. La Rampa runs uphill to Calle L and continues on the flat as Calle 23. Paralleling it to the north is a second major east-west thoroughfare, Línea (Calle 9), five blocks inland of the Malecón, which it meets to the northeast.
Vedado slopes gently upward from the shore to Calle 23 and then gently downward toward Nuevo Vedado and Plaza de la Revolución.
The Malecón runs along the bulging, wave-battered shorefront of northern Vedado, curling from La Rampa in the east to the Río Almendares in the west, a distance of three miles. The sidewalk is pitted underfoot, but a stroll its full length makes for good exercise while taking in such sights as the Monumento Calixto García (Malecón y Av. de los Presidentes), featuring a bronze figure of the 19th-century rebel general on horseback; the Hotel Habana Riviera (Malecón y Paseo), opened by the Mafia in 1958 and recently remodeled to show off its spectacular modernist lobby; and the Torreón de Santa Dorotea de la Luna de la Chorrera (Malecón y Calle 20), a small fortress built in 1762 to guard the mouth of the Río Almendares. Immediately beyond “La Chorrera,” the Restaurante 1830 features a Gaudí-esque garden that includes a dramatic cupola and a tiny island—Isla Japonesa—in Japanese style.
The landmark Hotel Nacional (Calles O y 21, tel. 07/836-3564) is dramatically perched atop a cliff at the junction of La Rampa and the Malecón. Now a national monument, this grande dame hotel was designed by the same architects who designed The Breakers in Palm Beach, which it closely resembles. It opened on December 30, 1930, in the midst of the Great Depression. In 1933, army officers loyal to Machado holed up here following Batista’s coup; a gun battle ensued. More famously, in December 1946 Lucky Luciano called a mobster summit (ostensibly they were here to honor Frank Sinatra) to discuss carving up Havana.
The elaborately detailed, Spanish-style hotel was greatly in need of refurbishment when, in 1955, mobster Meyer Lansky persuaded General Batista to let him build a grand casino. Luminaries from Winston Churchill and the Prince of Wales to Marlon Brando have laid their heads here, as attested by the photos in the bar. It is still the preferred hotel for visiting bigwigs.
Beyond the Palladian porch, the vestibule is lavishly adorned with Mudejar patterned tiles. The sweeping palm-shaded lawns to the rear—the terrace bar is a de rigueur spot to enjoy a mojito and cigar—slope toward the Malecón, above which sits a battery of cannons from the independence wars. The cliff is riddled with defensive tunnels built since the 1970s.
The modernist Hotel Capri (Calles 21 y N) was built in 1958 by the American gangster Santo Trafficante and was a setting in the movie The Godfather and Soy Cuba.
The Monumento a las Víctimas del Maine (Maine Monument, Malecón y Calle 17) was dedicated by the republican Cuban government to the memory of the 260 sailors who died when the USS Maine exploded in Havana harbor in 1898, creating a prelude for U.S. intervention in the War of Independence. Two rusting cannons tethered by chains from the ship’s anchor are laid out beneath 12-meter-tall Corinthian columns dedicated in 1925 and originally topped by an eagle with wings spread wide. Immediately after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1960, a mob toppled the eagle—its body is now in the Museo de la Ciudad de la Habana, while the head hangs on the wall of the cafeteria in the U.S. Interests Section. The Castro government later dedicated a plaque that reads, “To the victims of the Maine, who were sacrificed by imperialist voracity in its eagerness to seize the island of Cuba.”
The Plaza de la Dignidad (Plaza of Dignity, Malecón y Calzada), west of the Maine Monument, was created at the height of the Elián González fiasco in 1999-2000 from what was a grassy knoll in front of the U.S. Interests Section. A statue of José Martí stands at the plaza’s eastern end, bearing in one arm a bronze likeness of young Elián while with the other he points an accusatory finger at the Interests Section—habaneros joke that Martí is trying to tell them, “Your visas are that way!”
The Cuban government also pumped US$2 million into constructing the Tribuna Abierta Anti-Imperialista (José Martí Anti-Imperialist Platform)—called jokingly by locals the “protestadromo”—at the west end of the plaza to accommodate the masses bused in to taunt Uncle Sam. The concrete supports bear plaques inscribed with the names of Communist and revolutionary heroes, plus those of prominent North Americans—from Benjamin Spock to Malcolm X—at the fore of the fight for social reforms.
At the western end of the plaza is the U.S. Interests Section (formerly the U.S. Embassy), where U.S. diplomats and CIA agents serve Uncle Sam’s whims behind a veil of mirrored-glass windows. A forest of 138 huge flagstaffs, El Monte de los Banderas, was erected in front of the building in 2007 to block the ticker-tape anti-Castroite propaganda that the Bush administration churlishly initiated (each black flag represents a year since the launch of the Ten Years War in 1868). President Obama sensibly ended the ticker.
Calle 23 rises from the Malecón to Calle L and climbs steadily past the major airline offices, nightclubs, cinemas, travel agencies, TV studios, and art deco apartment buildings mingling with high-rise office buildings. La Rampa (The Ramp) was the setting of Three Trapped Tigers, Guillermo Cabrera Infante’s famous novel about swinging 1950s Havana, for it was here that the ritziest hotels, casinos, and nightclubs were concentrated in the days before the Revolution. Multicolored granite tiles created by Wilfredo Lam and René Portocarrero are laid at intervals in the sidewalks.
At the top of La Rampa is the Parque Coppelia (Calle 23 y L, Tues.-Sun. 10am-9:30pm), the name of a park in Havana, of the flying saucer-like structure at its heart, and of the brand of excellent ice cream served here. In 1966, the government built this lush park with a parlor in the middle as the biggest ice creamery in the world, serving up to an estimated 30,000 customers a day. Cuba’s rich diversity can be observed standing in line at Coppelia on a sultry Havana afternoon.
The strange concrete structure, suspended on spidery legs and looming over the park, features circular rooms overhead like a four-leaf clover, offering views over open-air sections where helado (ice cream) is enjoyed beneath the dappled shade of lush jagüey trees. Each section has its own cola (line), proportional in length to the strength of the sun. Foreigners are usually sent to an exclusive section where you pay CUC1 per scoop, but the real fun is standing in line with Cubans, for which you’ll need moneda nacional.
Coppelia was featured in Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s trenchant classic movie, Fresa y Chocolate, named for the scene at Coppelia where Diego, a gay man partial to strawberry ice cream, attempts to seduce a loyal fidelista. After the movie’s success, Cuban males, concerned with their macho image, avoided ordering strawberry ice cream.
The 416-foot-tall Hotel Habana Libre (Free Havana Hotel, Calle L, e/ 23 y 25) was once the place to be after opening as the Havana Hilton in April 1958. Castro even had his headquarters here briefly in 1959. For years the hotel teemed with shady foreigners—many of them, reported National Geographic, “not strictly tourists” and all “watched by secret police agents from the ‘ministry,’ meaning MININT, the Ministry of the Interior.” The hotel is fronted by a massive mural by ceramist Amelia Peláez, made of 525 pieces in the style of Picasso. The lobby contains other art pieces, including a mosaic mural—Carro de la Revolución (the Revolutionary Car)—by Alfredo Sosabravo on the mezzanine.
view of Calle 23 from Hotel Habana Libre
Of interest primarily to students of Cuba’s revolutionary history, this museum (Calle 25 #164, e/ Infanta y O, tel. 07/835-0891, Mon.-Sat. 9am-4pm, free) occupies a simple two-room, sixth-floor apartment (#603) where Fidel Castro’s revolutionary movement, the M-26-7, had its secret headquarters in the former home of the eponymous martyr, brutally tortured and murdered following the attack on the Moncada barracks in 1953. Original furnishings include Fidel’s work desk.
The Universidad de la Habana (University of Havana, Calle L y San Lázaro, tel. 07/878-3231, www.uh.cu, Mon.-Fri. 8am-6pm) was founded by Dominican friars in 1728 and was originally situated on Calle Obispo in Habana Vieja. During the 20th century the university was an autonomous “sacred hill” that neither the police nor the army could enter—although gangsters and renegade politicians roamed the campus amid the jungle of Cuban politics. Visitors can stroll the grounds. The campus is off-limits on weekends, and the campus and museums are closed July-August.
From Calle L, the university is entered via an immense, 50-meter-wide stone staircase: the 88-step Escalinata (staircase). A patinated bronze statue of the Alma Mater cast by Czech sculptor Mario Korbel in 1919 sits atop the staircase. The twice-life-size statue of a woman is seated in a bronze chair with six classical bas-reliefs representing various disciplines taught at the university. She is dressed in a long-sleeve tunic and extends her bare arms, beckoning all those who desire knowledge.
Escalinata
The staircase is topped by a columned portico, beyond which lies the peaceful Plaza Ignacio Agramonte, surrounded by classical buildings. A Saracen armored car in the quadrant was captured in 1958 by students in the fight against Batista. The Aula Magna (Great Hall) features magnificent murals by Armando Menocal, plus the marble tomb of independence leader Félix Varela (1788-1853).
The Monumento a Julio Antonio Mella, across Calle L at the base of the Escalinata, contains the ashes of Mella, founder of the University Students’ Federation and, later, of the Cuban Communist Party.
The Escuela de Ciencias (School of Sciences), on the south side of the quadrant, contains the Museo de Ciencias Naturales Felipe Poey (Felipe Poey Museum of Natural Sciences, tel. 07/877-4221, Mon.-Thurs. 9am-noon and 1pm-4pm, Fri. 9am-noon, free), displaying endemic species from alligators to sharks, stuffed or pickled for posterity. The museum dates from 1842 and is named for its French-Cuban founder. Poey (1799-1891) was versed in every field of the sciences and founded the Academy of Medical Sciences, the Anthropological Society of Cuba, and a half dozen other societies. The Museo Anthropológico Montane (Montane Anthropology Museum, tel. 07/879-3488, Mon.-Thurs. 9am-noon and 1pm-4pm, Fri. 9am-noon, free), on the second floor, displays pre-Columbian artifacts.
Who would imagine that so much of Napoleon Bonaparte’s personal memorabilia would end up in Cuba? But it has, housed in the Museo Napoleónico (Napoleonic Museum, San Miguel #1159, e/ Ronda y Masón, tel. 07/879-1460, mnapoleonico@patrimonio.ohc.cu, Tues.-Sat. 9:30am-5pm, Sun. 9:30am-12:30pm, entrance CUC3, camera CUC5, guide CUC2) in a Florentine Renaissance mansion on the south side of the university. The collection (7,000 pieces) was the private work of Orestes Ferrara, one-time Cuban ambassador to France. Ferrara brought back from Europe such precious items as the French emperor’s death mask, his watch, toothbrush, and the pistols Napoleon used at the Battle of Borodino. Other items were seized from Julio Lobo, the former National Bank president, when he left Cuba for exile. The museum—housed in Ferrara’s former three-story home (Ferrara was also forced out by the Revolution)—is replete with busts and portraits of the military genius, plus armaments, uniforms, etc.
This street stretches west from the Monumento a las Víctimas del Maine and is lined with remarkable buildings, beginning with the landmark 35-story Focsa (Calle 17 e/ M y N), a V-shaped apartment block built 1954-1956 as one of the largest reinforced concrete structures in the world. The Instituto Cubano de Amistad con los Pueblos (Cuban Institute for People’s Friendship, Calle 17 #301, e/ H y I) occupies a palatial beaux-arts villa. One block west, the equally magnificent Casa de Juan Gelats is another spectacular exemplar of beaux-arts style; built in 1920 it houses the Unión Nacional de Escritores y Artistas de Cuba (National Union of Cuban Writers and Artists, UNEAC, Calle 17 #351, esq. H, tel. 07/832-4551, www.uneac.org.cu).
Pop in to view the small Holocaust museum Centro Hebreo Sefaradi (Calle 17 #462, esq. E, tel. 07/832-6623), limited to visual displays. The Museo de Artes Decorativas (Museum of Decorative Arts, Calle 17 #502, e/ D y E, tel. 07/861-0241 or 07/832-0924, Tues.-Sat. 9:30am-5pm and Sun. 10am-2pm, CUC5 with guide, cameras CUC5, videos CUC10), housed in the former mansion of a Cuban countess, brims with lavish furniture, paintings, textiles, and chinoiserie from the 18th and 19th centuries.
Beyond Paseo, on the west side, to the left, is the Casa de la Amistad (Paseo #406, e/ 17 y 19, tel. 07/830-3114), an Italian Renaissance mansion—Casa de Juan Pedro Baró—built in 1926 with a surfeit of Carrara marble, silver-laminated banisters, decorative Lalique glass, and Baccarat crystal.
Two blocks west, Calle 17 opens onto Parque Lennon (Calle 6), where in 2000, on the 20th anniversary of John Lennon’s death, a life-size bronze statue was unveiled in the presence of Fidel (who had previously banned Beatles music). Lennon sits on a cast-iron bench, his head slightly tilted, right leg resting on his left knee, with his arm draped casually over the back of the bench, and plenty of room for anyone who wants to join him. The sculpture is by Cuban artist José Villa, who inscribed the words “People say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one,” at Lennon’s feet. A custodio is there 24/7; he takes care of Lennon’s spectacles.
Museo de Artes Decorativas
Avenida de los Presidentes (Calle G) runs perpendicular to Calle 23 and climbs from the Malecón toward Plaza de la Revolución. The avenue is named for the statues of Cuban and Latin American presidents that grace its length. (The busts of Tomás Estrada Palma and José Miguel Gómez, the first and second presidents of the Cuban republic, were toppled following the Revolution, as they were accused of being “puppets” of the U.S. government.)
The Monumento Calixto García studs the Malecón. One block south, on your right, the Casa de las Américas (Presidentes, esq. 3ra, tel. 07/832-2706, www.casa.cult.cu, Mon.-Fri. 8am-4:45pm)—a cultural center formed in 1959 to study and promote the cultures of Latin America and the Caribbean—is housed in a cathedral-like art deco building. Fifty meters south is the Casa’s Galería Haydee Santamaría (e/ 5ta and G).
The Museo de la Danza (Calle Línea #365, esq. Presidentes, tel. 07/831-2198, musdanza@cubarte.cult.cu, Tues.-Sat. 10am-5pm, CUC2, guide CUC1) occupies a restored mansion and has salons dedicated to Russian ballet, modern dance, and the Ballet Nacional de Cuba.
Ascending the avenue, you’ll pass statues to Ecuadorian president Eloy Alfaro (e/ 15 y 17; note the wall mural called Wrinkles, for self-evident reasons, on the southwest corner), Mexican president Benito Juárez (e/ 17 y 19), Venezuelan Simón Bolívar (e/ 19 y 21), Panamanian strongman president Omar Torrijos (e/ 19 y 21), and Chilean president Salvador Allende (e/ 21 y 23).
The tree-shaded boulevard climbs two blocks to the Monumento a José Miguel Gómez (Calle 29), designed by Italian sculptor Giovanni Nicolini and erected in 1936 in classical style to honor the former republican president (1909-1913). Beyond, the road drops through a canyon to the junction with Avenida Salvador Allende. To the west, on the north side of the road, the once-graceful Quinta de los Molinos (e/ Infanta y Luaces) was built between 1837 and 1840 as a summer palace for the captains-general and in 1899 was granted as the private residence of General Máximo Gómez, the Dominican-born commander-in-chief of the liberation army. It now houses the motley Museo de Máximo Gómez (tel. 07/879-8850; closed for restoration at last visit). The molino (mill) refers to a tobacco mill that operated 1800-1835, powered by the waters of the Zanja Real. The quinta’s 4.8-hectare grounds form the Jardín Botánico (Botanical Gardens, Tues.-Sun. 7am-7pm), recently restored after years of dereliction. Guided walks are offered.
The Necrópolis Cristóbal Colón (Columbus Cemetery, Zapata, esq. 12, tel. 07/830-4517, daily 8am-5pm, entrance CUC5 includes guide and right to photograph) covers 56 hectares and contains more than 500 major mausoleums, chapels, vaults, tombs, and galleries (in addition to countless gravestones) embellished with angels, griffins, cherubs, and other flamboyant ornamentation. You’ll even find Greco-Roman temples in miniature, an Egyptian pyramid, medieval castles, plus baroque, Romantic, Renaissance, art deco, and art nouveau art by a pantheon of Cuba’s leading sculptors and artists. The triple-arched entrance gate has marble reliefs depicting the crucifixion and Lazarus rising from the grave and is topped by a marble coronation stone representing the theological virtues: Faith, Hope, and Charity.
Today a national monument, the cemetery was laid out between 1871 and 1886 in 16 rectangular blocks, like a Roman military camp, divided by social status. Nobles competed to build the most elaborate tombs, with social standing dictating the size and location of plots.
Famous criollo patricians, colonial aristocrats, and war heroes such as Máximo Gómez are buried here alongside noted intellectuals and politicians. The list goes on and on: José Raúl Capablanca, the world chess champion 1921-1927 (his tomb is guarded by a marble queen chess piece); Alejo Carpentier, Cuba’s most revered contemporary novelist; Celia Sánchez, Haydee Santamaría, and a plethora of other revolutionaries killed for the cause, and even some of the Revolution’s enemies. The Galería Tobias is one of several underground galleries; this one is 100 meters long and contains 256 niches containing human remains.
The major tombs line Avenida Cristóbal Colón, the main avenue, which leads south from the gate to an ocher-colored, octagonal neo-Byzantine church, the Capilla Central, containing a fresco of the Last Judgment.
The most visited grave is the flower-bedecked tomb of Amelia Goyri de Hoz, revered as La Milagrosa (The Miraculous One, Calles 3 y F) and to whom the superstitious ascribe miraculous healings. According to legend, she died during childbirth in 1901 and was buried with her stillborn child at her feet. When her sarcophagus was later opened, the baby was supposedly cradled in her arms. Ever since, believers have paid homage by knocking three times on the tombstone with one of its brass rings, before touching the tomb and requesting a favor (one must not turn one’s back on the tomb when departing). Many childless women pray here in hopes of a pregnancy.
The Chinese built their own cemetery immediately southwest of Cementerio Colón, on the west side of Avenida 26 (e/ 28 y 33, tel. 07/831-1645, daily 8am-4pm, free). Beyond the circular gateway, traditional lions stand guard over burial chapels with upward-curving roofs.
The northwest corner of Calles 23 and 12, one block north of Cementerio Colón, marks the spot where, on April 16, 1961, Castro announced (on the eve of the Bay of Pigs invasion) that Cuba was henceforth socialist. The anniversary of the declaration of socialism is marked each April 16. A bronze bas-relief shows Fidel surrounded by soldiers, rifles held aloft. It honors citizens killed in the U.S.-sponsored strike on the airfield at Marianao that was a prelude to the invasion. It repeats his words: “This is the socialist and democratic revolution of the humble, with the humble, for the humble.”
Havana’s largest plaza, Plaza de la Revolución (Revolution Plaza), which occupies the Loma de los Catalanes (Hill of the Catalans), is an ugly tarred square. The trapezoidal complex spanning 11 acres was laid out during the Batista era, when it was known as the Plaza Cívica. It forms the administrative center for Cuba. All the major edifices date back to the 1950s. Huge rallies are held here on May 1. The plaza is under close surveillance and loitering is discouraged.
Among the important buildings are the monumentalist Biblioteca Nacional (National Library, tel. 07/862-9436, Mon. 8:15am-1pm, Tues.-Fri. 8:15am-6:30pm, Sat. 8am-4:30pm, guided tours are offered), Cuba’s largest library, built 1955-1957; the 21-story Ministerio de Defensa, originally built as the municipal seat of government on the plaza’s southeast side; and the Teatro Nacional (National Theater, Paseo y Av. Carlos M. de Céspedes, tel. 07/879-6011), one block to the northwest of the plaza, built 1954-1960 with a convex glazed facade. Paseo climbs northwest from the plaza to Zapata, where in the middle of the road rises the Memorial a Ethel y Julius Rosenberg, bearing cement doves and an inset sculpture of the U.S. couple executed in 1953 for passing nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union. An inscription reads, “Assassinated June 19, 1953.” The Cuban government holds a memorial service here each June 19.
The massive Memorial José Martí on the south side of the square sits atop a 30-meter-tall base that is shaped as a five-pointed star. It is made entirely of gray granite and marble and was designed by Enrique Luis Varela and completed in 1958. To each side, arching stairways lead to an 18-meter-tall (59-foot) gray-white marble statue of national hero José Martí sitting in a contemplative pose, like Rodin’s The Thinker.
Behind looms a 109-meter-tall marble edifice stepped like a soaring ziggurat from a sci-fi movie. It’s the highest point in Havana. The edifice houses the Museo José Martí (tel. 07/859-2347, Mon.-Sat. 9am-4:30pm, entrance CUC3, cameras CUC5, videos CUC10), dedicated to Martí’s life, with maps, texts, paintings, and a multiscreen broadcast on independence and the Revolution. An elevator whisks you to the top of the tower for a 360-degree view over Havana (CUC2).
The center of government is the Palacio de la Revolución (Palace of the Revolution, tel. 07/879-6551), immediately south of the José Martí monument. This monumental structure was inspired by the architecture then popular in Fascist Europe and was built 1954-1957 as the Palace of Justice. Today, it is where Raúl Castro and Council of Ministers work out their policies of state. The labyrinthine, ocher-colored palace with gleaming black stone walls and checkered floors adjoins the buildings of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Before the Revolution, the buildings served as the Cuban Supreme Court and national police headquarters. No visitors are allowed.
Commanding the northwest side of the plaza is the seven-story Ministerio del Interior (Ministry of the Interior, MININT, in charge of national security), built in 1953 to be the Office of the Comptroller. On its east side is a windowless horizontal block that bears a soaring “mural” of Che Guevara and the words Hasta la victoria siempre (“Always toward victory”), erected in 1995 from steel railings donated by the French government. See it by day, and by night, when it is illuminated.
La Milagrosa, the tomb of Amelia Goyri de Hoz
In October 2009, a visage of Comandante Camilo Cienfuegos (identical in style to that of Che) was erected on the facade of the Ministry of Communications, on the plaza’s northeast corner. The 100-ton steel mural was raised for the 50th anniversary of Cienfuegos’s death and is accompanied by the words Vas bien, Fidel (“You’re doing fine, Fidel”). Cienfuegos’s famous response was in reply to Fidel’s question “Am I doing all right, Camilo?” at a rally on January 8, 1959. The ground floor Museo Postal Cubano (Cuban Post Museum, Av. Rancho Boyeros, esq. 19 de Mayo, tel. 07/882-8255, Mon.-Thurs. 8am-5:30pm, Fri. 8am-4:30pm, entrance CUC1) has a well-catalogued philatelic collection, including a complete range of Cuban postage stamps dating from 1855, plus stamps from almost 100 other countries.
Nuevo Vedado, which stretches southwest of Plaza de la Revolución, is a sprawling complex of mid-20th-century housing, including high-rise, postrevolutionary apartment blocks. There are also some magnificent modern edifices, notably private homes built in modernist style in the 1950s, plus the Palacio de Deportes (Sports Palace, colloquially called “El Coliseo”), at Avenida 26, Avenida de la Independencia (Rancho Boyeros), and Vía Blanca.
Note: Those with children in tow might be tempted to visit the poorly managed Jardín Zoológico de la Habana (Havana Zoological Garden, Av. 26 y Zoológico, tel. 07/881-8915, zoohabana@ch.gov.cu, Wed.-Sun. 9:30am-5pm, CUC2), but this depressing zoo is best avoided.
Opened in 2014, the Center for Che Guevara Studies (Calle 47 #772 e/ Conill y Tulipán, tel. 07/814-1013, www.centroche.co.cu) is housed in a handsome contemporary building opposite Che’s gorgeous former modernist home (Calle 47 #770), where he lived 1962-1964 and which is now housing offices for the center. It has separate salas dedicated to Che, Camilo Cienfuegos, and Haydee Santamaría, plus a library, auditorium, and expositions on Che’s life.
Follow Avenida Zoológica west to the bridge over the Río Almendares to enter the Bosque de la Habana (Havana Forest). This ribbon of wild, vine-draped woodland stretches alongside the river. There is no path—you must walk along Calle 49C, which parallels the river. Going alone is not advised; robberies have occurred.
North of Bosque de la Habana, and accessed from Avenida 47, the motley riverside Parque Metropolitano de la Habana has pony rides, rowboats, mini-golf, and a children’s playground. To the south, the woods extend to Los Jardines de la Tropical (Calle Rizo, tel. 07/881-8767, Tues.-Sun. 9am-6pm), a landscaped park built 1904-1910 on the grounds of a former brewery for promotional purposes. The park found its inspiration in Antoni Gaudí’s Parque Güell in Barcelona. Today it is near-derelict and looks like an abandoned set from Lord of the Rings. The Aula Ecológica (Ciclovía, tel. 07/881-9979, Mon.-Fri. 9am-5pm) features a meager visitor center with a 1:2,000 scale model of the project.
West of Vedado and the Río Almendares, the municipio of Playa extends to the western boundary of Havana as far as the Río Quibu. Most areas were renamed following the Revolution. Gone are Country Club and Biltmore, replaced with politically acceptable names such as Atabey, Cubanacán, and Siboney, in honor of Cuba’s indigenous past.
Miramar is Havana’s upscale residential district, laid out in an expansive grid of tree-shaded streets lined by fine mansions. Most of their original owners fled Cuba after the Revolution. Nonetheless, Miramar is at the forefront of Cuba’s quasi-capitalist remake. The best-stocked stores are here, as are the foreign embassies.
Primera Avenida (1st Avenue, 1ra Av.) runs along the shore. Time-worn balnearios (bathing areas) are found along Miramar’s waterfront, cut into the shore. Of limited appeal to tourists, they draw Cubans on hot summer days.
Inland, running parallel at intervals of about 200 meters, are 3ra Avenida, 5ta Avenida (the main thoroughfare), and 7ma Avenida.
Tunnels under the Río Almendares connect Miramar to Vedado. The Malecón connects with 5ta Avenida; Línea (Calle 9) connects with 7ma Avenida and Avenida 31, which leads to the Marianao district; Calle 11 also connects with 7ma Avenida; Calle 23 becomes Avenida 47, linking Vedado with Kohly and Marianao.
The wide, fig-tree-lined, eight-kilometer-long boulevard called 5th Avenue, or “Quinta,” runs ruler-straight through the heart of Miramar. It is flanked by mansions, many now occupied by Cuban commercial agencies or leased to foreign corporations or embassies; Quinta Avenida (5ta Av.) is known as “Embassy Row.”
At its eastern end, the Casa de la Tejas Verdes (House of Green Tiles, Calle 2 #318, Miramar, tel. 07/212-5282, tejasverde@patrimonio.ohc.cu, visits by appointment), or Edificio Fraxas, is a restored beaux-arts mansion on the north side of Quinta at Calle 2, immediately west of the tunnel. Built in 1926, after the Revolution it fell into utter decay. It has a sumptuous post-modern interior.
The junction at Calle 10 is pinned by Reloj de Quinta Avenida, a large clock erected in 1924 in the central median. At Calle 12, the Museo del Ministerio del Interior (Museum of the Ministry of the Interior, 5ta Av., esq. 14, tel. 07/203-4432, closed for restoration at press time) is dedicated to the CIA’s inept efforts to dethrone Fidel. The seal of the CIA looms over a room full of photos and gadgets straight from a spy movie.
Parque de los Ahorcados (Park of the Hanged) spans Quinta between Calles 24 and 26; it’s shaded by massive jagüey trees. Rising over the west side is Iglesia de Santa Rita de Casia (5ta, esq. Calle 26, tel. 07/204-2001). This exemplar of modernist church architecture dates from 1942. Its main feature is a modernist statue of Santa Rita by Rita Longa.
The modernist-style Romanesque Iglesia San Antonio de Padua (Calle 60 #316, esq. 5ta, tel. 07/203-5045) dates from 1951 and boasts a magnificent, albeit nonfunctional, organ. On the north side of Quinta, a monstrous Cubist tower can be seen virtually the length of the avenue. Formerly the Soviet Embassy, it is now the Russian Embassy (5ta, e/ 62 y 66).
At Calle 70 is the Miramar Trade Center, comprising six buildings. On the south side of Quinta rises the massive Roman-Byzantine-style Basílica Jesús de Miramar (5ta #8003, e/ 80 y 82, tel. 07/203-5301, daily 9am-noon and 4pm-6pm), built in 1953 with a magnificent organ with 5,000 pipes and 14 splendid oversize paintings of the Stations of the Cross.
The Pabellón de la Maqueta de la Habana (Model of Havana, Calle 28 #113, e/ 1ra y 3ra, tel. 07/206-1268, maqueta@gdic.cu, Tues.-Sat. 9:30am-5pm, adults CUC3, students, seniors, and children CUC1, guided tour CUC1, cameras CUC2) is a 1:1,000 scale model of the city. The 144-square-meter maqueta (model) represents 144 square kilometers of Havana and its environs. The model took more than 10 years to complete and shows Havana in the most intimate detail, color-coded by age.
The Acuario Nacional (National Aquarium, 3ra Av., esq. 62, tel. 07/203-6401 or 07/202-5872, www.acuarionacional.cu, Tues.-Sun. 10am-6pm and until 10pm July-Aug., adults CUC10, children CUC7, including shows) exhibits 450 species of sealife, including corals, exotic tropical fish, sharks, hawksbill turtles, sea lions, and dolphins. The tanks and displays are disappointing by international standards. A sea lion show (Tues.-Sun. 11am and 4pm, Sat.-Sun. 11am, 2pm, and 4pm) and dolphin shows (daily noon, 3pm, and 5pm) are offered.
The Fundación Naturaleza y El Hombre (Foundation of Man and Nature, Av. 5B #6611, e/ 66 y 70, tel. 07/209-2885, halcma@fanj.cult.cu, Mon.-Fri. 8:30am-4:30pm, CUC2) honors Cuban naturalist and explorer Antonio Nuñez Jiménez. Many of the eclectic exhibits are dedicated to the 10,889-mile journey by a team of Cubans (led by Nuñez) that paddled from the source of the Amazon to the Bahamas in dugout canoes in 1996. A replica of the canoe is there, along with indigenous artifacts such as weapons, headdresses, and scores of ceramics.
Beyond Miramar, 5ta Avenida curls around the half-moon Playa Marianao and passes through the Náutico and Flores districts, the setting for Havana’s elite prerevolutionary social clubs and balnearios. Following the Revolution they were reopened to the hoi polloi and rechristened. The beaches—collectively known as Playas del Oeste—are popular with Cubans on weekends, when they get crowded. There was even an eponymous mini-version of New York’s famous Coney Island theme park, re-created in 2008 as Isla de Coco Parque Temático (tel. 07/208-0330, Wed.-Fri. 4pm-10pm, Sat.-Sun. 10am-10pm).
Commanding the scene are the palatial Mudejar-style former Balneario de la Concha (5ta e/ 112 and 146) and, immediately west, the Balneario Club Náutico with its sweeping modernist entrance. Beyond the Río Quibu, 5ta Avenida passes into the Flores district. The Havana-Biltmore Yacht and Country Club was here, dating from 1928 and fronting Havana’s most beautiful expanse of white sand. After the Revolution, the beach was opened to all Cubans and the former casino and hotel became a workers’ social club. The “Yacht” was founded in 1886 and became the snootiest place in Havana (it was here that President Fulgencio Batista, mulatto, was famously refused entry for being too “black”) until the Revolution, when it became the Club Social Julio Antonio Mella, for workers. Today, as the Club Habana (5ta Av., e/ 188 y 214, Playa, tel. 07/275-0100, yanis@clubhabana.palco.cu), it has reverted to its former role as a private club for the (mostly foreign) elite. Nonmembers are welcome (daily 9am-7pm, Mon.-Fri. CUC20, Sat.-Sun. CUC30) to use the beach, water sports, and pool.
Club Habana
Fidel Castro’s main domicile is at Punta Cero, in Jaimanitas, although you can’t see it. The home is set in an expansive compound surrounded by pine trees and electrified fences and heavy security south of Avenida 5ta. All streets surrounding it are marked as one-way, heading away from the house, which is connected by a tunnel to the navy base immediately west of Club Havana. Avenida 5ta between Calles 188 and 230 is a no-photography zone.
Opened in February 2014 by world-renowned artist Alexis Leiva Machado, better known as “Kcho,” this contemporary art complex (7ma esq. 120, Playa, tel. 07/208-4750 or 5279-1844, visits by appointment, one week in advance) opened with a library, theater, experimental graphic workshop, and galleries intended to show the works of leading artists worldwide, with revolving exhibitions. It will eventually also have a foundry and carpentry and pottery workshops, but also involves community projects such as enhancement of local parks. Kcho finances the project himself.
Artist José R. Fuster, a world-renowned painter and ceramist nicknamed the “Picasso of the Caribbean,” has an open-air workshop-gallery at his home (Calle 226, esq. Av. 3ra, Jaimanitas, tel. 07/271-2932 or cell 5281-5421, daily 9am-5pm; call ahead). You step through a giant doorway—La Puerta de Fuster—to discover a surreal world made of ceramics. Many of the naïve, childlike works are inspired by farmyard scenes and icons of cubanidad, such as El Torre del Gallo (Rooster’s Tower), a four-meter-tall statement on male chauvinism.
Fuster’s creativity now graces the entryways, benches, roofs, and facades of houses throughout his local community.
Cubanacán is—or was—Havana’s Beverly Hills, a reclusive area on either side of the Río Quibu. It was developed in the 1920s with winding tree-lined streets on which the most grandiose of Havana’s mansions arose. An 18-hole golf course at the Havana Country Club, lending the name Country Club Park to what is now called Cubanacán, still the swankiest address in town. Following the Revolution, most of the area’s homeowners fled Cuba. Their mansions were dispensed to Communist Party officials, many of whom live in a lap of luxury that the vast majority of Cubans can only dream of and, of course, never see. The Castros maintain several homes here, and the area is replete with military camps and security personnel. Other homes serve either as “protocol” houses—villas where foreign dignitaries and VIPs are housed during visits—or as foreign embassies and ambassadors’ homes.
One of the swankiest mansions was built in 1910 for the Marqués de Pinar del Río; it was later adorned with 1930s art deco glass and chrome, a spiral staircase, and abstract floral designs. Today it is the Fábrica El Laguito (Av. 146 #2302, e/ 21 y 21A, tel. 07/208-4654, by appointment only), the nation’s premier cigar factory, making Montecristos and the majority of Cohibas—the premium Havana cigar.
Havana’s impressive convention center, the Palacio de las Convenciones (Convention Palace, Calle 146, e/ 11 y 13, tel. 07/202-6011), was built in 1979 for the Non-Aligned Conference. The main hall (hosts twice-yearly meetings of the Cuban National Assembly. To its rear, Pabexpo (Av. 17 y 180, tel. 07/271-6775) has four exhibition halls for trade shows.
Cuba’s biotechnology industry is also centered here and extends westward into the districts of Atabey and Siboney, earning the area the moniker “Scientific City.” The Centro de Ingenieria Genética y Biotecnología (Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, Av. 31, e/ 158 y 190, Havana, tel. 07/271-6022, http://gndp.cigb.edu.cu), Cuba’s main research facility, is perhaps the most sophisticated research facility in any developing nation.
Following the Revolution, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara famously played a few rounds of golf at the exclusive Havana Country Club before tearing it up and converting the grounds to house Cuba’s leading art academy, the Instituto Superior de Arte (Higher Art Institute, Calle 120 #1110, esq. 9na, tel. 07/208-0017 or 07/208-0288, www.isa.cult.cu, by appointment only; closed in summer), featuring the Escuela de Música (School of Music), Escuela de Ballet (Ballet School), Escuela de Baile Moderno (School of Modern Dance), and Escuela de Bellas Artes (School of Fine Arts). The school was designed by three young “rebel” architects: Italians Roberto Gottardi and Vittorio Garatti, and Cuban Ricardo Porro. Porro’s art school was a deliberate evocation of the female form complete with fountain shaped as a mamey, or papaya—an overt reference to the female vulva. As the five red-brick main buildings emerged, they were thought too avant-garde. The project was halted, though the school did open. The complex fell into ruin. Amazingly, in 2001 the Cuban government asked the three architects to complete the project. Restoration was completed in 2009.
Calles 15 and 134 have the best views.
This dilapidated municipio, on the heights south of Miramar, evolved in the mid-19th century, when wealthy Cubans built fine summer homes along newly laid streets. During the 1920s, Marianao boasted the Marianao Country Club, the Oriental Park racetrack, and Grand Nacional Casino, and was given a boost on New Year’s Eve 1939 when the Tropicana opened as Havana’s ritziest nightclub. After the Revolution, the casinos, racetrack, and even Tropicana (briefly) were shut down.
Following the U.S. occupation of Cuba in 1898, the U.S. military governor, General Fitzhugh Lee, established his headquarters in Marianao and called it Camp Columbia: Campamento Columbia later became headquarters for Batista’s army; it was from here that the sergeant effected his golpes in 1933 and 1952. Camp Columbia was bombed on April 15, 1960, during the prelude to the CIA-run Bay of Pigs invasion.
Following the Revolution, Castro turned the barracks into a school complex—Ciudad Escolar Libertad—which in 1961 became the headquarters for Castro’s national literacy campaign. The Museo de la Campaña de Alfabetización (Museum of the Literacy Campaign, Av. 29E, esq. 76, tel. 07/260-8054, Mon.-Fri. 8am-5pm, free) is dedicated to the campaign initiated on January 1, 1960, when 120,632 uniformed brigadistas, mostly students, spread out across the country to teach illiterate peasantry to read and write. The blue building 100 meters west was Fulgencio Batista’s former manse.
A tower in the center of the traffic circle—Plaza Finlay—outside the main entrance, at Avenida 31 and Avenida 100, was erected in 1944 as a beacon for the military airfield. In 1948 a needle was added so that today it is shaped like a syringe in honor of Carlos Finlay, the Cuban who in 1881 discovered the cause of yellow fever.
A freeway—the Autopista a San Antonio—links Havana with San Antonio de los Baños. Midway between the two cities, you’ll pass the Universidad de las Ciencias Informáticas (Carretera de San Antonio de los Baños, Km 2_, Torrens, tel. 07/837-2548, www.uci.cu), Cuba’s university dedicated to making the country a world power in software technology. Immediately north is the gray marble Memorial al Soldado Internacionalista Soviético, with an eternal flame dedicated to Soviet military personnel who died in combat.
The Tropicana (Calle 72 e/ 41 y 45, tel. 07/207-0110, www.cabaret-tropicana.com) is an astonishing exemplar of modernist architecture. Most of the structures date from 1951, when the nightclub was restored with a new showroom—the Salon Arcos de Cristal (Crystal Bows)—designed by Max Borges Recio with a roof of five arcing concrete vaults and curving bands of glass to fill the intervening space. Built in decreasing order of height, they produce a telescopic effect that channels the perspective toward the orchestra platform. Borges also added the famous geometric sculpture that still forms the backdrop to the main stage, in the outdoor Salón Bajo las Estrellas.
Visitors can only view the exterior features by day, when the dancers practice. To admire the Salon Arcos de Cristal, you must visit at night, when the statuesque showgirls perform beneath the stars.
A ballet dancer pirouetting on the tips of her toes dances amid the lush foliage in front of the entrance. The statue, by the renowned Cuban sculptor Rita Longa, is surrounded by bacchantes performing a wild ritual dance to honor Dionysius. It is Tropicana’s motif.
This small village, two kilometers east of the Carretera Central on Havana’s southwestern outskirts, was founded in 1723 and has retained its historic charm. Immigrants from the Canary Islands and Majorca brought a tradition of pottery making. Their descendants are still known as skilled potters (alfareros), who use local red clays shaped on foot-operated wheels and fired in traditional wood-fired kilns.
monument at the Museo de la Campaña de Alfabetización
The harbor channel and Bahía de la Habana (Havana Bay) separate Habana Vieja from the communities of Casablanca, Regla, and Guanabacoa. The communities can be reached through a tunnel under the harbor channel (access is eastbound off Avenida del Puerto and the Prado) or along Vía Blanca, skirting the harbor. Little ferries bob their way across the harbor, connecting Casablanca and Regla with each other and with Habana Vieja.
Looming over Habana Vieja, on the north side of the harbor channel, the rugged cliff face is dominated by two great fortresses that constitute Parque Histórico Militar Morro-Cabaña (Morro-La Cabaña Historical Military Park, Carretera de la Cabaña, Habana del Este, tel. 07/866-2808). Together, the castles comprise the largest and most powerful defensive complex built by the Spanish in the Americas.
Visitors arriving by car reach the complex via the harbor tunnel (no pedestrians or motorcycles without sidecars are allowed) that descends beneath the Monumento al General Máximo Gómez off Avenida de Céspedes. Buses from Parque de la Fraternidad pass through the tunnel and stop by the fortress access road.
The Castillo de Los Tres Reyes del Morro (Castle of the Three Kings of the Headland, tel. 07/863-7941, daily 8am-7pm, entrance CUC6, children under 12 free, guide CUC1) is built into the rocky palisades of Punta Barlovento at the entrance to Havana’s narrow harbor channel. The fort—designed by Italian engineer Bautista Antonelli and initiated in 1589—forms an irregular polygon that follows the contours of the headland, with a sharp-angled bastion at the apex, stone walls 10 feet thick, and a series of batteries stepping down to the shore. Slaves toiled under the lash of whip and sun to cut the stone in situ, extracted from the void that forms the moats. El Morro took 40 years to complete and served its job well, repelling countless pirate attacks and withstanding for 44 days a siege by British cannons in 1762.
Today you enter via a drawbridge across the deep moat that leads through the Túnel Aspillerado (Tunnel of Loopholes) to vast wooden gates that open to the Camino de Rondas, a small parade ground (Plaza de Armas) containing a two-story building atop water cisterns that supplied the garrison of 1,000 men.
To the right of the plaza, a narrow entrance leads to the Baluarte de Austria (Austrian Bastion), with cannon embrasures for firing down on the moat. A cobbled ramp leads up to other baluartes.
To the left of the Plaza de Armas, the Sala de Historia del Faro y Castillo profiles the various lighthouses and castles in Cuba. Beyond is the Surtida de los Tinajones, where giant earthenware vases are inset in stone. They once contained rapeseed oil as lantern fuel for the 25-meter-tall Faro del Morro (daily 10am-noon and 2pm-7pm, CUC2 extra), a lighthouse constructed in 1844. Today an electric lantern still flashes twice every 15 seconds. You can climb to the top for a bird’s-eye view.
All maritime traffic in and out of Havana harbor is controlled from the Estación Semafórica, the semaphore station atop the castle, accessed via the Baluarte de Tejeda.
Below the castle, facing the city on the landward side and reached by a cobbled ramp, is the Batería de los Doce Apóstoles (Battery of the Twelve Apostles). It boasts massive cannons and El Polvorín (The Powderhouse) bar.
The massive Fortaleza de San Carlos de la Cabaña (Saint Charles of the Flock Fortress, Carretera de la Cabaña, tel. 07/862-4095, daily 10am-10pm, entrance CUC6 adults, children under 12 free, CUC8 for the cañonazo ceremony, guide CUC1), half a kilometer east of the Morro, enjoys a fantastic strategic position overlooking the city and harbor. It is the largest fort in the Americas, covering 10 hectares and stretching 700 meters in length. It was built 1763-1774 following the English invasion, and cost the staggering sum of 14 million pesos—when told the cost, the king after whom it is named reached for a telescope; surely, he said, it must be large enough to see from Madrid. The castle counted some 120 bronze cannons and mortars, plus a permanent garrison of 1,300 men. While never actually used in battle, it has been claimed that its dissuasive presence won all potential battles—a tribute to the French designer and engineer entrusted with its conception and construction. The complex was looking deteriorated at my most recent visit.
From the north, you pass through two defensive structures before reaching the monumental baroque portal flanked by great columns with a pediment etched with the escutcheon of Kings Charles III, followed by a massive drawbridge over a 12-meter-deep moat, one of several moats carved from solid rock and separating individual fortress components.
Beyond the entrance gate a paved alley leads to the Plaza de Armas, centered on a grassy, tree-shaded park fronted by a 400-meter-long curtain wall: La Cortina runs the length of the castle on its south side and formed the main gun position overlooking Havana. It is lined with cannons. The Ceremonía del Cañonazo (cannon-firing ceremony, CUC6) is held nightly at 8:30pm, when troops dressed in 18th-century military garb and led by fife and drum light the fuse of a cannon to announce the closing of the city gates, maintaining a tradition going back centuries. The soldiers prepare the cannon with ramrod and live charge. When the soldier puts the torch to the cannon at 9pm, you have about three seconds before the thunderous boom. It’s all over in a millisecond, and the troops march away. Opening to the plaza is a small chapel with a baroque facade and charming vaulted interior. Immediately ahead, a now derelict building served as the headquarters for Che Guevara following the Triunfo del Revolución; here, he set up his tribunals for “crimes against the security of the state.”
Facing the plaza on its north side is the Museo de Fortificaciones y Armas. The museum (thick-walled, vaulted storage rooms, or bovedas) traces the castle’s development and features uniforms and weaponry from the colonial epoch, including a representation of a former prison cell, plus suits of armor and weaponry that span the ancient Arab and Asian worlds and stretch back through medieval times to the Roman era.
A portal here leads into a garden—Patio de los Jagüeyes—that once served as a cortadura, a defensive element packed with explosives that could be ignited to foil the enemy’s attempts to gain entry. The bovedas open to the north to cobbled Calle de la Marina, where converted barracks, armaments stores, and prisoners’ cells now contain restaurants and the Casa del Tabaco y Ron, displaying the world’s longest cigar (11 meters long).
Midway down Marina, a gate leads down to El Foso de los Laureles, a massive moat containing the execution wall where nationalist sympathizers were shot during the wars of independence. Following the Revolution, scores of Batista supporters and “counterrevolutionaries” met a similar fate.
Displayed atop the San Julián Revellín moat, on the north side of Fortaleza de San Carlos, are missiles and armaments from the Cuban Missile Crisis (called the October 1962 Crisis by Cubans). These include an SS-4 nuclear missile: English-language panels explain that it had a range of 2,100 kilometer and a one megaton load, and was one of 36 such missiles installed at the time. Also here are other missiles, a MiG fighter jet, various anti-aircraft guns, and remains of the U-2 piloted by Major General Rudolf Anderson shot down over Cuba on 27 October 1962.
The Estatua Cristo de la Habana (Havana Christ Statue, Carretera del Asilo, daily 9am-8pm, entrance CUC1, children under 12 free) looms over Casablanca, dominating the cliff face immediately east of the fortaleza. The 15-meter-tall statue, unveiled on December 25, 1958, was hewn from Italian Carrara marble by Cuban sculptor Jilma Madera. From the mirador surrounding the statue, you have a bird’s-eye view of the harbor. It is possible, with the sun gilding the waters, to imagine great galleons slipping in and out of the harbor laden with treasure en route to Spain.
The adjoining Casa-Museo del Che (tel. 07/866-4747, daily 9am-7pm, entrance CUC6, guide CUC1) is where Che Guevara lived immediately following the fall of Batista. Today it displays his M-1 rifle, submachine gun, radio, and rucksack, among other exhibits.
A ferry (10 centavos) runs to Casablanca every 20 minutes or so from the Muelle Luz (Av. del Puerto y Calle Santa Clara) in Habana Vieja. You can walk uphill from Casablanca.
Regla, a working-class barrio on the eastern shore of Havana harbor, evolved in the 16th century as a fishing village and eventually became Havana’s foremost warehousing and slaving center. It developed into a smugglers’ port in colonial days. Havana’s main electricity-generating plant is here, along with petrochemical works, both of which pour bilious plumes over town.
Regla is a center of Santería; note the tiny shrines outside many houses. Calle Calixto García has many fine examples. Many babalawos (Santería priests) live here and will happily dispense advice for a fee; try Eberardo Marero (Ñico López #60, e/ Coyola y Camilo Cienfuegos).
The Museo Municipal de Regla (Martí #158, e/ Facciolo y La Piedra, tel. 07/797-6989, Tues.-Sat. 9am-8:45pm, Sun. 1pm-8:45pm, entrance CUC2, guide CUC1), two blocks east of the harborfront, tells the tale of the town’s Santería associations. Other displays include colonial-era swords, slave shackles, and the like.
Calle Martí, the main street, leads southeast to the city cemetery; from there, turn east onto Avenida Rosario for two blocks, where steps ascend to Colina Lenin (Lenin Hill, Calle Vieja, e/ Enlase y Rosaria). A three-meter-tall bronze face of the Communist leader is carved into the cliff face. A dozen life-size figures (in cement) cheer him from below. A museum (tel. 07/797-6899, Tues.-Sat. 9am-5pm, free) atop the hill is dedicated to Lenin and various martyrs of the Cuban Revolution.
The Colina is more directly reached from Parque Guaycanamar (Calle Martí, six blocks east of the harborfront) via Calle Albuquerque and 24 de Febrero; you’ll reach a metal staircase that leads to the park. Bus #29 will take you there from the Regla dock.
Ferries (10 centavos) run between Regla and the Muelle Luz (Av. San Pedro y Santa Clara) in Habana Vieja. Bus #6 departs for Regla from Zulueta and Genios in Habana Vieja; bus #106 departs from Zulueta and Refugio.
The Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de Regla (Church of Our Lady of Regla, Sanctuario #11, e/ Máximo Gómez y Litoral, tel. 07/797-6228, daily 7:30am-5:30pm), built in 1810 on the harborfront, is one of Havana’s loveliest churches, highlighted by a gilt altar. Figurines of miscellaneous saints dwell in wall alcoves, including a statue of St. Anthony leading a wooden suckling pig. Habaneros flock to pay homage to the black Virgen de Regla, patron saint of sailors and Catholic counterpart to Yemayá, the goddess of water in the Santería religion. Time your visit for the seventh of each month, when large masses are held, or for a pilgrimage each September 7, when the Virgin is paraded through town.
Castillo de Los Tres Reyes del Morro
Outside, 20 meters to the east and presiding over her own private chapel, is a statue of the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre, Cuba’s patron saint. Syncretized as the orisha Ochún, she also draws adherents of Santería.
Guanabacoa, three kilometers east of Regla, was founded in 1607 and developed as the major trading center for slaves. An Afro-Cuban culture evolved here, expressed in a strong musical heritage. The Casa de la Trova (Martí #111, e/ San Antonio y Versalles, tel. 07/797-7687, hours vary, entrance one peso) hosts performances of Afro-Cuban music and dance, as does Restaurante Las Orishas (Calle Martí, e/ Lamas y Cruz Verde, tel. 07/794-7878, daily noon-midnight). Guanabacoa is also Cuba’s most important center of Santería. So strong is the association that all over Cuba, folks facing extreme adversity will say “I’m going to have to go to Guanabacoa,” implying that only the power of a babalawo can fix the problem.
Guanabacoa also boasts several religious sites (most are tumbledown and await restoration), including two Jewish cemeteries on the east side of town.
The sprawling town is centered on the small tree-shaded Parque Martí (Calles Martí, División Pepe Antonio, y Adolfo del Castillo Cadenas), dominated by the Iglesia Nuestra Señora de la Asunción (División #331, e/ Martí y Cadenas, tel. 07/797-7368, Mon.-Fri. 8am-noon and 2pm-5pm, Sun. 8am-11am), commonly called the Parroquial Mayor. Completed in 1748, it features a lofty Mudejar-inspired wooden roof and baroque gilt altar dripping with gold, plus 14 Stations of the Cross. If the doors are locked, try the side entrance on Calle Enrique Güiral.
The Museo Histórico de Guanabacoa (Historical Museum of Guanabacoa, Martí #108, e/ Valenzuela y Quintín Bandera, tel. 07/797-9117, musgbcoa@cubarte.cult.cu, Tues.-Sat. 10am-5pm, Sun. 10am-1pm, entrance CUC2, guide CUC1), one block west of the plaza, tells of Guanabacoa’s development and the evolution of Afro-Cuban culture.
One block southwest of the park, the Convento y Iglesia de San Antonio (Máximo Gómez, esq. San Antonio, tel. 07/797-7241), begun in 1720 and completed in 1806, is now a school. The custodio may let you in to admire the exquisite alfarje ceiling.
The Convento de Santo Domingo (Santo Domingo #407, esq. Rafael de Cadena, tel. 07/797-7376, Tues.-Fri. 9am-11:30am and 3:30pm-5pm but often closed) dates from 1728 and has an impressive neo-baroque facade. Its church, the Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria, boasts a magnificent blue-and-gilt baroque altar plus an intricate alfarje. The door is usually closed; ring the doorbell to the left of the entrance.
The only ecclesiastical edifice thus far restored is the tiny hilltop Ermita de Potosí (Potosí Hermitage, Calzada Vieja Guanabacoa, esq. Calle Potosí, tel. 07/797-9867, daily 8am-5pm). The simple hermitage dates back to 1644 and is the oldest religious structure still standing in Cuba. It has an intriguing cemetery.
Bus #29 runs to Guanabacoa from the Regla dock. Bus #3 departs for Guanabacoa from Máximo Gómez and Aponte, on the south side of Parque de la Fraternidad, in Habana Vieja; and bus #95 leaves from the corner of Corrales and Zulueta. From Vedado, take Metrobus P15 from G y 23.
Yes, the city has lost the Barbary Coast spirit of prerevolutionary days, but habaneros love to paint the town red as much as their budgets allow. Many venues are seedier than they were in the 1950s; in many the decor hasn’t changed! Pricey entrance fees dissuade Cubans from attending the hottest new venues. Cubans are even priced out of most bars (one beer can cost the equivalent of a week’s salary).
The great news is that private nightclubs have sprouted since being legalized in 2011. Havana now has some really chic scenes reminiscent of L.A. or Miami. And a gamut of 3-D theaters opened, only to be shuttered in a government crackdown in late 2013.
For theater, classical concerts, and other live performances it’s difficult to make a reservation by telephone. Instead, go to the venue and buy a ticket in advance or just before the performance. Call ahead to double-check dates, times, and venue.
Havana finally has two reliable, widely circulated forums for announcements of upcoming events. The Havana Reporter, an English-language weekly newspaper, features a center-page spread with upcoming gigs at key venues. It’s available in tourist hotel lobbies, as is Cartelera, a cultural magazine for tourists published monthly by Artex, with information on exhibitions, galleries, performances, and more. A fantastic Internet source is Cuba Absolutely (www.cubaabsolutely.com), which maintains a monthly update of live concerts and other cultural events nationwide on its website.
Radio Taíno (1290 AM and 93.3 FM), serving tourists, offers information on cultural happenings with nightly broadcasts 5pm-7pm, as does Radio Habana (94.9 FM, www.habanaradio.cu), which also broadcasts online. The TV program Hurón Azul (Cubavision) gives a preview of the next week’s top happenings every Thursday at 10:25pm.
Since so many young Cubans lack money for bars and clubs, thousands hang out on the Malecón (principally between Calle 23 and Calle 0) and along Avenida de los Presidentes (Calle G) on weekend nights. The latter chiefly draws frikis (Goths and punks), roqueros, and what Julia Cooke calls “a genealogical map of youth culture,” who mill around sharing beer or rum and listening to music played on cell phones.
Every tourist in town wants to sip a mojito at La Bodeguita del Medio (Empedrado #207, e/ Cuba y Tacón, tel. 07/867-1374, daily 10am-midnight). However, the mojitos are weak (perhaps explaining why Hemingway didn’t sup here, contrary to legend). Go for the ambience, aided by troubadours.
A true Hemingway favorite offering far better and cheaper (CUC4) mojitos is the Dos Hermanos (Av. San Pedro #304, esq. Sol, tel. 07/861-3514, 11am-11pm), a recently refurbished wharf-front saloon where Hemingway bent elbows with sailors and prostitutes at the long wooden bar. There’s often live music.
Hemingway enjoyed his sugarless papa doble daiquiri (double shot of rum) at El Floridita (Obispo, esq. Monserrate, tel. 07/867-1301, bar open daily 11:30am-midnight). It may not quite live up to its 1950s aura, when Esquire magazine named it one of the great bars of the world, but to visit Havana without sipping a daiquiri here would be like visiting France without tasting the wine.
For chic, try Sloppy Joe’s (Animas esq. Zulueta, tel. 07/866-7157, daily noon-2am). This once-legendary bar—founded in 1918 by José Abel, who turned a dilapidated and messy grocery store into “Sloppy Joe’s”—reopened in 2013 after decades in ruins. It’s been remade as it was, with glossy wood paneling, glass cases around the sides displaying bottles of rum, and a long mahogany bar with tall barstools and flat-screen TVs. The Sloppy Joe house drink is made of brandy, Cointreau, port, and pineapple juice (CUC5).
Just around the corner is the trendy Bar Asturias (Prado #309 esq. Virtudes, tel. 07/864-1447, 10pm-2am), a cool and colorful club to the rear of the ground floor of the Sociedad Cultural Asturiana. Go for the jazz, jam sessions, and boleros.
Beer lovers should head to Plaza Vieja, where the Factoría Plaza Vieja (San Ignacio #364, tel. 07/866-4453, daily 11am-1am), a Viennese-style brewpub (a.k.a. Taberna de la Muralla), produces delicious Pilsen (light) and Munich (dark) beer. You can order half-liters (CUC2), liters, or a whopping three-liter dispensa. This tall glass cylinder is fitted with a tap and filled with beer kept chilled by a thin center tube filled with ice.
The penny-pinching farandula (in-crowd) heads to Bar La Chanchullero (Brasil e/ Berraza y Cristo, no tel., daily 1pm-midnight), a cool down-to-earth hole-in-the-wall on Plaza del Cristo.
New in 2013, the suave state-run Adagio Barconcert (Paseo de Martí esq. Neptuno, tel. 07/861-6575, daily 2pm-2am, free) combines chic styling with awesome classical music (think Andrea Boccelli), bolero, and jazz, including live performances.
The Hotel Nacional’s patio Bar La Terraza is a great place to laze in a rattan sofa chair with a cigar and cocktail while musicians entertain with live music.
For superb sweeping views of the city, try the Salón Turquino (25th floor inside Hotel Habana Libre Tryp, Calle L, e/ 23 y 25, tel. 07/834-6100), or La Torre (Calle 17 #55, e/ M y N, tel. 07/838-3088), atop the Focsa building.
At Esencia Habana (Calle B #153 e/ Calzada y Línea, tel. 07/836-3031, esenciahabana@yahoo.com, 1pm-3am), owner Juan (a Spaniard) and his Cuban partner have conjured a colonial-style mansion into a classic Cuban bar with quasi European pretension. It’s hugely popular with expats, perhaps because it feels slightly like an English pub. Go for happy hour Friday 5pm-8pm, and for tapas such as carpaccio (CUC6.50) and garlic shrimp (CUC5), best enjoyed on the patio terrace.
La farandula (the in-crowd) hangs out at El Cocinero (Calle 26 e/ 11 y 13, tel. 07/832-2355, www.elcocinerohabana.com), a red-brick former electricity station and fish warehouse-turned open-air lounge club that has a chic new New York City-style vibe. Adjoining, the Fábrica de Arte (Calle 13 #61, esq. 26, CUC2) opened in February 2014 as Havana’s chicest bohemian nightspot: a complete cultural venue—with theater, film, dance, fashion shows, art exhibitions, and concerts—for the relatively poor El Fanguito neighborhood. It’s housed in a former olive oil factory and fish warehouse with chimney.
This district is ground zero for the hip private lounge club craze now sweeping Havana.
To mingle with Cuba’s artsy bohemians, head to Café Madrigal (Calle 17 #809, e/ 2 y 4, tel. 07/831-2433, rafa@audiovisuales.icaic.cu, Tues.-Sun. 6pm-2am), upstairs in the home of film-maker Rafael Rosales. This is a spot for tapas and a brain-freezingly chilled daiquiri.
One of the coolest bars in town, Milano Lounge Club (3ra #2404 e/ 24 y 26, tel. 07/203-4641, www.milanoloungeclub.com, daily noon-3am) combines a chic glass-walled modernist restaurant and outdoor lounge club where a DJ spins techno tunes and Ernesto the barman puts on a Cirque Soleil standard show behind the bar. Expats consider the Miami-style alfresco lounge bar at La Fontana (3ra Av. #305, esq. 46, tel. 07/202-8337, daily noon-2am) a second home for its cool blue-lit chic and great cocktails.
And you’re forgiven if you think you’ve landed in Miami’s South Beach at Kpricho (Calle 94 #110 e/ 1ra y 3ra, Miramar, tel. 07/206-4167), a super stylish and sexy lounge club with a hot late-night party scene. Same, too, for Melem (Av. 1ra e/ 58 y 60, tel. 07/203-0433, 8pm-3am), a chic and classy contemporary take on a cocktail club; it gets in the groove after midnight. A pity it permits smoking!
Drawing monied young Cubans, the Hotel Meliá Habana’s chic alfresco Sport Bar (3ra Av., e/ 76 y 80, tel. 07/204-8500, Mon.-Fri. noon-3am and Sat.-Sun. 9am-3am) has a hip South Beach vibe, with all-around sports TVs, a DJ, and occasional live music.
And about the only “wine bar” in town is classy air-conditioned Club de Vino Halo’s (Av. 3ra y Calle 78, tel. 07/204-2919), on the west side of Edificio Barcelona at the Miramar Trade Center. It serves only one white and one red by the glass. However, you can buy bottles—mostly Argentinian, Chilean, and Spanish—from a large international selection.