Havana Shopping

  1. Galerías de Paseo

    Galerías de Paseo is a surprisingly upscale shopping center, with Adidas and Chanel labels and even a car dealership. It sells designer clothes and other consumer items to tourists and affluent Cubans. There's a Bim Bom ice-cream parlor here too.

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  2. La Manzana de Gómez

    An elegant European-style covered mall built in 1910, the Manzana is a long way from the resplendent shopping extravaganza of yore. Nonetheless, this huge chunk of mildewed neoclassical real estate is both central and convenient - and hence normally very busy. Hidden away inside the murky and rather cavernous interior you'll find shoe stores, boutiques, an art gallery, a shabby restaurant and El Orbe bike rentals.

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  3. Plaza Carlos III

    After Plaza de las Américas in Varadero, this is probably Cuba's flashiest shopping mall - and there's barely a foreigner in sight. Dresses, sports shoes, radios and bicycles - they're all on sale here. Step in on a Saturday and see the double economy working at fever pitch.

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  4. Variadades Galiano

    The main shopping streets for Cubans are pedestrian San Rafael and traffic-choked Av de Italia (Galiano). At the point where both thoroughfares meet stands Variadades Galiano, the Bloomingdales of Cuban department stores (and a former Woolworths) that sells everything from mesh tank tops to old records. With its strangely evocative interior that mixes aspiring 1950s New York with dingy 1970s Moscow, this place offers an authentic glimpse into how Cubans go shopping.

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