Catedral de San Cristóbal de la Habana

Lonely Planet review

Dominated by two unequal towers and framed by a theatrical baroque facade designed in the style of Italian architect Francesco Borromini, Habana's graceful Catedral de San Cristóbal was once described by Cuban novelist Alejo Carpentier as 'music set in stone'.

Pope John Paul II said one of his four Cuban Masses at the cathedral in January 1998 during a groundbreaking papal tour of the island.

When the Jesuits began construction of the church in 1748, Habana was still under the ecclesiastical control of Santiago de Cuba. Work continued despite the expulsion of the Jesuits from Cuba in 1767, and the diocese of Habana was finally created when the building was finished in 1787. A year later the city became a bishop's seat, elevating the church to a cathedral - one of the oldest in the Americas. Legend has it that the cathedral contained a dramatic funeral monument dedicated to Christopher Columbus, which held the great explorer's remains. It's said that the monument was shipped to Spain in 1898, where it is interred in Seville's cathedral.

One of the cathedral's many curiosities is its surprisingly austere classical interior, the work of a pious bishop at the beginning of the 19th century. To take a peep at the pews and altar your best bet is to slip inside during Sunday Mass.