Museum sights in Eastern Cuba
- Sort by:
- Popular
-
A
Museo de la Lucha Clandestina
Up the slope and to the right is a former police station attacked by M-26-7 activists on November 30, 1956, to divert attention from the arrival of the tardy yacht Granma, carrying Fidel Castro and 81 others. The gorgeous colonial-style building now houses this museum detailing the underground struggle against Batista in the 1950s. It's a fascinating, if macabre, story enhanced by far-reaching views from the balcony. Across the street is the house where Fidel Castro lived from 1931 to 1933, while a student in Santiago de Cuba (not open for visits).
reviewed
-
B
Cuartel Moncada
Santiago's famous Moncada Barracks is named after Guillermón Moncada, a War of Independence fighter who was held prisoner here in 1874, though these days the name is more synonymous with one of history's greatest failed putsches.
The first barracks on this site was constructed by the Spanish in 1859, and in 1938 the present crenellated building was completed. Moncada earned immortality on the morning of July 26, 1953, when more than 100 revolutionaries led by then little known Fidel Castro stormed Batista's troops at what was then Cuba's second-most important military garrison.
After the Revolution, the barracks, like all others in Cuba, was converted into a school…
reviewed
-
C
Museo-Casa Natal de Antonio Maceo
This important but little-visited museum is where the mulato general and hero of both Wars of Independence was born on June 14, 1845. Known as the Bronze Titan in Cuba for his bravery in battle, Maceo was the definitive 'man of action' to Martí's 'man of ideas.' In his 1878 Protest of Baraguá, he rejected any compromise with the colonial authorities and went into exile rather than sell out to the Spanish. Landing at Playa Duaba in 1895, he marched his army as far west as Pinar del Río before being killed in action near Havana in 1896. This simple museum exhibits highlights of Maceo's life with photos, letters and a tattered flag that was flown in battle.
reviewed
-
D
Casa de Diego Velázquez
The oldest house still standing in Cuba, this early colonial abode dating from 1522 was the official residence of the island's first governor. Restored in the late 1960s, the Andalusian-style facade with fine, wooden lattice windows was inaugurated in 1970 as the Museo de Ambiente Histórico Cubano. The ground floor was originally a trading house and gold foundry, while the upstairs was where Velázquez lived. Today, rooms display period furnishings and decoration from the 16th to 19th centuries. Visitors are also taken through an adjacent 19th-century neoclassical house.
reviewed
-
E
Museo Municipal Emilio Bacardí Moreau
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 and city mayor, Emilio Bacardí y Moreau (the palatial building was built to spec), the museum is one of Cuba's oldest and most eclectic. Artifacts amassed from Bacardí's travels include an extensive weapons collection, paintings from the Spanish costumbrismo (19th-century artistic movement that predated Romanticism) school and the only Egyptian mummy on the island.
reviewed
-
Cuidad Escolar 26 de Julio Museum
In 1960, after the triumph of the revolution, the Moncada Barracks, like all barracks in Cuba, were converted into a school called Cuidad Escolar 26 de Julio, and in 1967 a museum was installed near gate No 3, where the main attack took place. Bastista's soldiers cemented over the original bullet holes from the attack so the Castro government remade them (this time without guns) after the revolution as a poignant reminder.
The museum outlines the history of Cuba from the Spanish conquest to the present, with heavy emphasis on the revolution, and it's one of Cuba's best.
reviewed
-
F
Museo Arqueológico
Baracoa’s newest and most impressive museum is the Museo Arqueológico, situated in Las Cuevas del Paraíso 800m southeast of the Hotel El Castillo. The exhibits here are showcased in a series of caves that once acted as Taíno burial chambers. Among nearly 2000 authentic Taíno pieces are unearthed skeletons, ceramics, 3000-year-old petroglyphs and a replica of the Ídolo de Tabaco, a sculpture found in Maisí in 1903 that is considered to be one of the most important Taíno finds in the Caribbean. One of the staff will enthusiastically show you around.
reviewed
-
G
Casa Natal de José María de Heredia
A small museum illustrating the life of one of Cuba's greatest Romantic poets (1803–39) and the man after whom the street is named. Heredia's most notable work, Ode to Niagara, is inscribed on the wall outside, and attempts to parallel the beauty of Canada's Niagara Falls with his personal feelings of loss about his homeland. In common with many Cuban independence advocates, Heredia was forced into exile, dying in Mexico in 1839.
reviewed
-
H
Museo Municipal
The Fuerte Matachín (1802) at the southern entrance to town, now houses the Museo Municipal. Though small, this museum showcases an engaging chronology of Cuba’s oldest settlement including polymita snail shells, the story of Che Guevara and the chocolate factory, and exhibits relating to pouty Magdalena Menasse (née Rovieskuya, ‘La Rusa’) after whom Alejo Carpentier based his famous book, La Consagración de la Primavera (The Rite of Spring).
reviewed
-
I
Casa Museo de Frank y Josué País
Integral to the success of the Revolution, the young País brothers organized the underground section of the M-26-7 in Santiago de Cuba until Frank's murder by the police on July 30, 1957. The exhibits in this home-turned-museum tell the story. It's located about five blocks southeast of Museo-Casa Natal de Antonio Maceo.
reviewed
Advertisement
-
J
Museo del Ron
While nowhere near as informative as its Havana equivalent, this diminutive museum offers a rough outline of the history of Cuban rum along with a potent shot of the hard stuff (añejo). Encased in a handsome townhouse on Calle Masó, it was undergoing extensive renovations at the time of writing.
reviewed
-
K
Museo de la Imagen
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 photos. The museum also guards a library of rare films and documentaries.
reviewed
-
L
Museo del Carnaval
A colorful museum displaying the history of Santiago's carnaval tradition, the oldest and biggest between Río and Mardi Gras. Drop in to see floats, effigies and the occasional folklórico dance show on the patio.
reviewed
-
M
Centro Cultural Africano Fernando Ortiz
The Centro Cultural Africano Fernando Ortiz contains African artifacts, handicrafts and fine art, collected by Cuba’s most important ethnologist. It was being renovated at time of writing.
reviewed
-
N
Museo Tomás Romay
A block west of Plaza de Marte is this natural-science museum collecting natural history and archaeology artifacts, with some modern art thrown in.
reviewed
-
O
Centro de Veteranos
Displays photos of those who perished in the 1959 Revolution and in the barely talked-about conflict in Angola.
reviewed
-
P
Memorial de Vilma Espín Guillois
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, opened in 2010, three years after her death. The daughter of a lawyer to the Bacardí clan, Vilma was first radicalized after a meeting with Frank País in Santiago in 1956. Joining the rebels in the mountains she went on to marry Raúl Castro and founded the influential Federation of Cuban Women in 1960. This house, where she lived from 1939 to 1959, is packed with photos, exhibits and lucid snippets of her life.
reviewed
-
Q
Maqueta de la Ciudad
Aping Havana's two impressive scale models of the city, Santiago has come up with its own incredibly detailed 'Maqueta'. Interesting historical and architectural information is displayed on illustrated wall panels and you can climb up to a mezzanine gallery for a true vulture's-eye city view. There's a small cafe on site.
reviewed
-
R
Museo Arqueológico 'La Cueva del Paraíso'
Baracoa's newest and most impressive museum is situated in Las Cuevas del Paraíso 800m southeast of the Hotel El Castillo. The exhibits here are showcased in a series of caves that once acted as Taíno burial chambers. Among nearly 2000 authentic Taíno pieces are unearthed skeletons, ceramics, 3000-year-old petroglyphs and a replica of the Ídolo de Tabaco, a sculpture found in Maisí in 1903 that is considered to be one of the most important Taíno finds in the Caribbean. One of the staff will enthusiastically show you around.
reviewed