Museum sights in Havana
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Museo de la Revolución
The Museo de la Revolución is housed in the former Presidential Palace, constructed between 1913 and 1920 and used by a string of cash-embezzling Cuban presidents, culminating in Fulgencio Batista. The world-famous Tiffany’s of New York decorated the interior, and the shimmering Salón de los Espejos (Room of Mirrors) was designed to resemble the room of the same name at the Palace of Versailles. In March 1957 the palace was the target of an unsuccessful assassination attempt against Batista led by revolutionary student leader José Antonio Echeverría. The museum itself descends chronologically from the top floor starting with Cuba’s pre-Columbian culture and extending to …
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Museo Hemingway
The villa’s interior has remained unchanged since the day Hemingway left (there are lots of stuffed trophies), and the wooded estate is now the Museo Hemingway. Hemingway left his house and its contents to the ‘Cuban people, ’ and his house has recently been the stimulus for a rare show of US-Cuban cooperation. In 2002 the Cubans agreed to a US-funded project to digitalize the documents stored in the basement of Finca La Vigía, and in May 2006 Cuba sent 11,000 of Hemingway’s private documents to the JFK Presidential Library in America for digitalization. This literary treasure trove (including a previously unseen epilogue for For Whom the Bell Tolls ) was finally…
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Palacio de Gobierno Y Vagón Mambí
This eclectic palace on Calle Oficios was the former seat of the Cuban government from 1902 until 1929 (when the Capitolio was completed). Furnished with decorative baroque details and an Italian marble floor, the museum contains a parliament room, the former president’s office and the original Cuban flag used by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes. To the side of the building on Churruca is the Vagón Mambí, a train car built in the US in 1900 and brought to Cuba in 1912. Put into service as the presidential car, it’s a palace on wheels, with a formal dining room, louvered wooden windows and, back in its heyday, fans that cooled the car with dry ice.
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Fundación Naturaleza y El Hombre
The fascinating museum at the Fundación Naturaleza y El Hombre displays artifacts from the 17,422km canoe trip from the Amazon source to sea led by Cuban intellectual and anthropologist Antonio Nuñez Jiménez in 1987. Other exhibits in the truly astounding museum include one of Cuba’s largest photography collections, books written by the prolific Nuñez Jiménez, the famous Fidel portrait by Guayasamín stalactites, and ‘the glass house’ – glass cases containing all kinds of intriguing ephemera from the founder’s life. The museum is a foundation and one of Havana’s most rewarding.
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Museo Carlos Finlay
Named after Cuba’s most famous scientist, this engaging museum on Calle Cuba is also home to the Academia de Ciencias Médicas, Físicas y Naturales (Academy of Medical, Physical & Natural Sciences). A physician of French and Scottish descent, Finlay (1833–1915) was the first scientist to identify the mosquito as the organism that caused yellow fever. Later on he became Cuba’s chief medical officer and a respected figure within the Latin American scientific community. The museum displays numerous busts and paintings related to the scientist’s remarkable life, along with a stash of over 95,000 medical books.
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Museo de la Ciudad
Since 1968 Palacio de los Capitanes Generales has been home to the Museo de la Ciudad, one of Havana’s most comprehensive and interesting museums that wraps its way regally around a splendid central courtyard adorned with a white marble statue of Christopher Columbus (1862). Artifacts include period furniture, military uniforms and old-fashioned 19th-century horse carriages, while old photos vividly re- create events from Havana’s rich history such as the 1898 sinking of US battleship Maine in the harbor. It’s better to body-swerve the pushy attendants and wander around at your own pace.
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Museo Napoleónico
An anomaly – but an interesting one – is the esoteric Museo Napoleónico situated just outside the university walls. It’s a collection of 7000 objects associated with the life of Napoleon Bonaparte amassed by Cuban sugar baron Julio Lobo and politician Orestes Ferrera. Highlights include sketches of Voltaire, paintings of the battle of Waterloo, china, furniture, an interesting recreation of Napoleon’s study and bedroom, and one of several bronze Napoleonic death masks made two days after the emperor’s death by his personal physician, Dr Francisco Antommarchi.
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Museo de Arte Religioso
The southern side of the square is taken up by the impressive Iglesia y Monasterio deSan Franciscode Asís. Originally constructed in 1608 and rebuilt in the baroque style from 1719 to 1738, San Francisco de Asís was taken over by the Spanish state in 1841 as part of a political move against the powerful religious orders of the day, when it ceased to be a church. Today it’s both a concert hall hosting classical music and the Museo de Arte Religioso replete with religious paintings, silverware, woodcarvings and ceramics.
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Museo Municipal de Guanabacoa
The town’s main sight is the freshly renovated Museo Municipal de Guanabacoa, two blocks west of Parque Martí. Founded in 1964, it tracks the development of the neighborhood throughout the 18th and 19th centuries and is famous for its rooms on Afro-Cuban culture, slavery and the Santería religion with a particular focus on the orisha Elegguá. The museum has another arm further west along Calle Martí in the Museo de Mártires, which displays material relevant to the Cuban Revolution.
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Museo Municipal de Regla
You'd do well to check out this quirky Museo Municipal de Regla, which is spread over two sites, one adjacent to a church and the other (better half) a couple of blocks up the main street from the ferry. Recording the history of Regla and its Afro-Cuban religions, there’s an interesting, small exhibit on Remigio Herrero, first babalawo (priest) of Regla, and a bizarre statue of Napoleon with his nose missing. Price of admission includes both museum outposts and the Colina Lenin exhibit.
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Castillo de San Salvador de la Punta museum
Across the Malecón is the picturesque Castillo de San Salvador de la Punta, designed by the Italian military engineer Giovanni Bautista Antonelli and built between 1589 and 1600. During the colonial era a chain was stretched 250m to the castle of El Morro every night to close the harbor mouth to shipping. The castle's museum was renovated in 2002 and displays artifacts from sunken Spanish treasure fleets, a collection of model ships and information on the slave trade.
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Museo de Simón Bolívar
A diminutive museum dedicated to Latin America’s great liberator, who remains a perennial hero to most Cubans. Downstairs there are panels containing text in English, French and Spanish that describe Bolívar’s life and his many accomplishments. Upstairs there’s a reproduction of his sword, a coin minted in his honor and paintings of him by contemporary artists. There is a bronze statue of Simón Bolívar in a small park across the road.
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Castillo de San Salvador de la Punta
Designed by the Italian engineer Giovanni Bautista Antonelli and built between 1589 and 1600, this fort is a fine example of 16th-century Renaissance military architecture. In days of yore, a chain was stretched 250m to the castle of El Morro on the other side of the channel every night to close the harbor mouth to shipping. The castle’s museum displays artifacts from sunken Spanish treasure fleets, a collection of model ships and information on the slave trade.
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Museo–Casa Natal de José Martí
The Museo–Casa Natal de José Martí is a humble, two-story dwelling on the edge of Habana Vieja where the apostle of Cuban independence was born on January 28, 1853. Today it’s a small museum that displays letters, manuscripts, photos, books and other mementos of his life. While not as comprehensive as the Martí museum on Plaza de la Revolución, it’s a charming little abode and well worth a small detour.
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Colección de Arte Universal
Arranged inside the fabulously eclectic Centro Asturianas (a work of art in its own right), the Colección de Arte Universal exhibits international art from 500 BC to the present day on three separate floors. Highlights include an extensive Spanish collection (with a canvas by El Greco), some 2000-year-old Roman mosaics, Greek pots from the 5th century BC and a suitably refined Gainsborough canvas (in the British room).
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Museo de Historia Natural
Universidad de la Habana's central quadrangle, the Plaza Ignacio Agramonte, displays a tank captured by Castro’s rebels in 1958. To the left is the Edificio Felipe Poey, which contains the Museo de Historia Natural. It is Cuba’s oldest museum, founded in 1874 by the Academia de Ciencias Médicas, Físicas y Naturales. Many of the stuffed specimens of Cuban flora and fauna date from the 19th century.
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Colección de Arte Cubano
The Colección de Arte Cubano displays purely Cuban art. Works are displayed in chronological order starting on the 3rd floor and are surprisingly varied. Artists to look out for are Guillermo Collazo, considered to be the first truly great Cuban artist, Rafael Blanco with his cartoon-like paintings and sketches, Raúl Martínez, a master of 1960s Cuban pop art, and the Picasso-like Wilfredo Lam.
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Museo Nacional de la Música
The collection of Cuban musical instruments exhibited in this glittering 1905 residence built in Italian Renaissance style includes vintage pianos, bongo drums, guitars, maracas, claves and even a xylophone from Laos. There’s a small shop near the entrance that sells recordings of Cuban music, and concerts – including some great rumba – take place in the music room a couple of nights a week.
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Museo EL Templete
The tiny neoclassical Doric chapel on the east side of the Plaza, known as the Museo El Templete, was erected in 1828 at the point where Havana’s first Mass was held beneath a ceiba tree in November 1519. A similar ceiba tree has now replaced the original. Inside the chapel are three large paintings of the event by the French painter Jean Baptiste Vermay (1786–1833).
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Asociación Cultural Yoruba de Cuba
The museum in this center provides a worthwhile overview of the Santería religion, the saints and their powers, although some travelers have complained that the exhibits don’t justify the price. There are tambores (Santería drum ceremonies) here on alternate Fridays at 4:30pm. Note that there’s a church dress code for the tambores (no shorts or tank tops).
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Museo de la Alfabetización
The former Cuartel Colombia military airfield at Marianao is now a school complex called Ciudad Libertad. Pass through the gate to visit the inspiring Museo de la Alfabetización, which describes the 1961 literacy campaign, when 100,000 youths aged 12 to 18 spread out across Cuba to teach reading and writing to farmers, workers and the aged.
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Memorial a José Martí
At 138.5m high, Memorial a José Martí is Havana’s tallest structure. Fronted by an impressive 17m marble statue of a seated Martí in pensive Thinker pose, the memorial houses a museum – the definite word on Martí in Cuba – and a 129m lookout (reached via small CUC$2 lift) with fantastic city views.
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Museo de Arte Colonial
The resplendent Palacio de los Condes de Casa Bayona built in 1720 today functions as the Museo de Arte Colonial, a small museum displaying colonial furniture and decorative arts. Among the finer exhibits are pieces of china with scenes of colonial Cuba, a collection of ornamental flowers, and many colonial-era dining room sets.
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Museo del Automóvil
You’d think that the last thing Havana would need is a car museum, but a block down Calle Oficios lies the small, surreal Museo del Automóvil stuffed with ancient Thunderbirds, Pontiacs and Ford Model Ts, at least half of which appear to be in better shape than the antiquated automobiles that ply the streets outside.
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Coche Mambí
To the side of the Palacio de Gobierno on Churruca is the Coche Mambí, a 1900 train car built in the US and brought to Cuba in 1912. Put into service as the Presidential Car, it’s a palace on wheels, with a formal dining room, louvered wooden windows and, back in its heyday, fans cooling the car with dry ice.
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