Must-see attractions in Santiago de Cuba

  • Cuba, Santiago de Cuba Province, Santiago de Cuba, Lighthouse at Castillo de San Pedro de la Roca del Morro

    Castillo de San Pedro de la Roca del Morro

    Santiago de Cuba

    A Unesco World Heritage site since 1997, the San Pedro fort sits impregnably atop a 60m-high promontory at the entrance to Santiago harbor, 10km southwest…

  • Moncada Museum

    Santiago de Cuba

    The museum inside the Cuartel Moncada is the best in town and one of the best in Cuba. Sometimes gory exhibits catalogue the details of the 1953 attack by…

  • Santa Ifigenia Cemetery in Cuba; Cementerio Santa Ifigenia

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    Cementerio Santa Ifigenia

    Santiago de Cuba

    Nestled peacefully on the city's western extremity, the Cementerio Santa Ifigenia is second only to Havana's Necrópolis Cristóbal Colón in its importance…

  • Catedral de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción

    Catedral de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción

    Santiago de Cuba

    Santiago's most important church is stunning both inside and out. There has been a cathedral on this site since the city's inception in the 1520s, though…

  • Cuartel Moncada

    Santiago de Cuba

    Santiago's famous Moncada Barracks, a crenelated art deco building completed in 1938, is now synonymous with one of history's greatest failed putsches…

  • Museo de Ambiente Histórico Cubano

    Santiago de Cuba

    The oldest house still standing in Cuba, this arresting early colonial abode dating from 1522 was the official residence of the island's first governor,…

  • Museo de la Lucha Clandestina

    Santiago de Cuba

    This gorgeous yellow colonial-style building houses a museum detailing the underground struggle against Batista in the 1950s. It's a fascinating, if…

  • Museo Municipal Emilio Bacardí Moreau

    Santiago de Cuba

    Narrow Pío Rosado links Calle Heredia to Calle Aguilera and the fabulous Grecian facade of the Bacardí Museum. Founded in 1899 by the rum-magnate war hero…

  • Jardín de los Helechos

    Santiago de Cuba

    This peaceful garden is a lush haven of 350 types of ferns and 90 types of orchids. It's the erstwhile private collection of santiagüero Manuel Caluff,…

  • Parque Alameda

    Santiago de Cuba

    Below the Tivolí quarter, this narrow park embellishes a dockside promenade opened in 1840 and redesigned in 1893. Refurbishment for the 2015…

  • Cayo Granma

    Santiago de Cuba

    A small, populated key near the jaws of the bay, Cayo Granma is a little fantasy island of red-roofed wooden houses – many of them on stilts above the…

  • Bacardí Rum Factory

    Santiago de Cuba

    While it's not as swanky as its modern Bermuda HQ, the original Bacardí factory, which opened in 1868, oozes history. Spanish-born founder Don Facundo…

  • Museo-Casa Natal de Antonio Maceo

    Santiago de Cuba

    This important museum is where the mulato general and hero of both Wars of Independence was born, on June 14, 1845, and exhibits highlights of Maceo's…

  • Calle Heredia

    Santiago de Cuba

    The music never stops on Calle Heredia, Santiago's most sensuous street and also one of its oldest. Melodies waft from the paint-peeled Casa de Cultura…

  • Parque Histórico Abel Santamaría

    Santiago de Cuba

    This is the site of the former Saturnino Lora Civil Hospital, stormed by Abel Santamaría and 60 others on that fateful July day (they were later tortured…

  • Parque Céspedes

    Santiago de Cuba

    Archetype for romantic Cuban street life, Parque Céspedes is a throbbing kaleidoscope of walking, talking, hustling, flirting, guitar-strumming humanity…

  • Memorial de Vilma Espín Guillois

    Santiago de Cuba

    This erstwhile home of Cuba's former 'first lady,' Vilma Espín, the wife of Raúl Castro, and instrumental force in the success of the Cuban Revolution,…

  • Tivolí

    Santiago de Cuba

    Santiago's old French quarter was first settled by colonists from Haiti in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Set on a south-facing hillside…

  • Museo del Ron

    Santiago de Cuba

    Now housed at the Bacardí Rum Factory, this modern little museum has well-presented exhibits and multilingual guides explaining the history and…

  • Calle José A Saco

    Santiago de Cuba

    A pedestrian-only street stretching from Plaza de Marte to the Paseo Alameda on the waterfront. Heaps of locals browse the shops and restaurants. For…

  • Plaza de Dolores

    Santiago de Cuba

    East of Parque Céspedes is the pleasant and shady Plaza de Dolores, a former marketplace now dominated by the 18th-century Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de…

  • Balcón de Velázquez

    Santiago de Cuba

    The alfresco Balcón de Velázquez is the site of an old Spanish fort. It offers ethereal views over the terracotta-tiled roofs of the Tivolí neighborhood…

  • Museo del Carnaval

    Santiago de Cuba

    A worthwhile museum, this is a quick visit to study the history of Santiago's biggest shindig, the oldest and biggest Carnaval between Río and Mardi Gras…

  • Palacio de Pioneros

    Santiago de Cuba

    This eclectic mansion (built 1906–10) was once the largest and most opulent in Santiago. Since 1974 it has been a developmental center for kids (pioneros)…

  • Museo de la Imagen

    Santiago de Cuba

    A short but fascinating journey through the history of Cuban photography from Kodak to Korda, with little CIA spy cameras and lots of old and contemporary…

  • Padre Pico Steps

    Santiago de Cuba

    The picturesque Padre Pico steps are almost 100 years old and still hosting rousing games of dominoes; the steps lead to the Tivolí neighborhood.

  • Iglesia de San Francisco

    Santiago de Cuba

    This crumbling three-nave, 18th-century ecclesiastical gem is situated three blocks north of Parque Céspedes.

  • Loma de San Juan

    Santiago de Cuba

    Future American president Teddy Roosevelt forged his reputation on this small hillock where, flanked by the immortal rough riders, he supposedly led a…

  • Casa del Caribe

    Santiago de Cuba

    Founded in 1982 to study Caribbean life, this cultural institution organizes the Festival del Caribe and the Fiesta del Fuego every July and also hosts…

  • Plaza de la Revolución

    Santiago de Cuba

    As with all Cuban cities, Santiago has its bombastic Revolution Square. This one's placed strategically at the junction of two sweeping avenues and…

  • Plaza de Marte

    Santiago de Cuba

    Guarding the entrance to the casco histórico, motorcycle-infested Plaza de Marte formerly served as a macabre 19th-century Spanish parade ground where…

  • Casa Museo de Frank y Josué País

    Santiago de Cuba

    Integral to the success of the revolution, the young País brothers organized the underground section of the M-26-7 (26th of July Movement) in Santiago de…

  • Maqueta de la Ciudad

    Santiago de Cuba

    Cuba is obsessed with scale city models, and Santiago, with this incredibly detailed maqueta, is no exception. Interesting historical and architectural…

  • Palacio de Justicia

    Santiago de Cuba

    On the opposite side of the street to Parque Histórico Abel Santamaría, this court building was taken by fighters led by Raúl Castro during the Moncada…

  • Ayuntamiento

    Santiago de Cuba

    The neoclassical Ayuntamiento was erected in the 1950s using a design from 1783 and was once the site of Hernán Cortés’ mayoral office. Fidel Castro…

  • Palacio Provincial

    Santiago de Cuba

    Situated opposite the Bacardí Museum, the equally Hellenic provincial government seat is another building from Cuba's 20th-century neoclassical revival…

  • José María Heredia y Heredia Statue

    Santiago de Cuba

    The traffic circle at the corner of Av Manduley and Calle 13 contains an impressive marble statue of poet José María Heredia y Heredia.

  • Casa de la Cultura Miguel Matamoros

    Santiago de Cuba

    The Casa de la Cultura Miguel Matamoros, on Parque Céspedes' eastern aspect, is the former San Carlos Club, a social center for wealthy santiagüeros until…

  • Iglesia de Nuestra Señora del Carmen

    Santiago de Cuba

    You can dig deeper into Santiago's ecclesiastical history in this tumbledown construction, a hall church dating from the 1700s that is the final resting…