Mark Read
Cuba
Timeworn but magnificent, dilapidated but dignified, fun yet maddeningly frustrating – Cuba is a country of rich dichotomies, and indefinable magic.
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Top attractions
These are our favorite local haunts, touristy spots, and hidden gems throughout Cuba.
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Necrópolis Cristóbal Colón
Havana's main cemetery (a national monument), one of the largest in the Americas, is renowned for its striking religious iconography and elaborate marble statues. Far from being eerie, a walk through these 57 hallowed hectares can be an educational and emotional stroll through the annals of Cuban history. A map (CUC$1) showing the graves of assorted artists, sportspeople, politicians, writers, scientists and revolutionaries is for sale at the entrance. Enter via the splendid Byzantine-Romanesque gateway, the Puerta de la Paz; the tomb of independence leader General Máximo Gómez (1905) is on the right (look for the bronze face in a circular medallion). Further along past the first circle, and also on the right, are the firefighters monument (1890) and the neo-Romanesque Capilla Central (1886), in the center of the cemetery. Just northeast of the chapel is the graveyard's most celebrated (and visited) tomb, that of Señora Amelia Goyri, better known as La Milagrosa (the Miraculous One), who died while giving birth on May 3, 1901. The marble figure of a woman with a large cross and a baby in her arms is easy to find due to the many flowers piled on the tomb and the local devotees in attendance. For many years after her death her heartbroken husband visited the grave several times a day. He always knocked with one of four iron rings on the burial vault and walked away backwards so that he could see her for as long as possible. When the bodies were exhumed some years later, Amelia's body was uncorrupted (a sign of sanctity in the Catholic faith), and the baby, who had been buried at its mother's feet, was allegedly found in her arms. As a result, La Milagrosa became the focus of a huge spiritual cult in Cuba, and thousands of people come here annually with gifts, in the hope of fulfilling dreams or solving problems. In keeping with tradition, pilgrims knock with the iron ring on the vault and walk away backwards when they leave. As important as La Milagrosa among the Santería community, the 'tomb of Hermano José' marks the grave of a woman called Leocadia Pérez Herrero, a black Havana medium known for her great acts of charity among the poor in the early 20th century. Leocadia said that she consulted with a Santería priest called Hermano José who encouraged and guided her in her generous acts. As a spiritual and superstitious person, she always kept a painting of Hermano José's image in her house, and when she died in 1962 the canvas was buried alongside her. Today followers of Santería venerate Hermano José and regularly come to Leocadia's grave to ask for charitable favors. In keeping with Santería tradition, they often leave flowers, glasses of rum, half-smoked cigars or sacrificed chickens on the grave. Also worth looking out for are the graves of novelist Alejo Carpentier (1904–80), scientist Carlos Finlay (1833–1915), the Martyrs of Granma and the Veterans of the Independence Wars.
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Castillo de San Pedro de la Roca del Morro
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 of the city. The stupendous views from the upper terrace take in the wild western ribbon of Santiago's coastline backed by the velvety Sierra Maestra. Multilingual guides provide invaluable historical background and color; be sure to tip. The fort was designed in 1587 by famous Italian military engineer Juan Bautista Antonelli (who also designed La Punta and El Morro forts in Havana) to protect Santiago from pillaging pirates who had successfully sacked the city in 1554. Because of financial constraints, the building work didn't start until 1633 (17 years after Antonelli's death), and it carried on sporadically for the next 60 years. In the interim, British privateer Henry Morgan sacked and partially destroyed it. Finally finished in the early 1700s, El Morro's massive batteries, bastions, magazines and walls got little opportunity to serve their true purpose. With the era of piracy in decline, the fort was converted into a prison in the 1800s, and it stayed that way (bar a brief interlude during the 1898 Spanish–Cuban–American War) until Cuban architect Francisco Prat Puig mustered up a restoration plan in the late 1960s. Today, the fort hosts the swashbuckling Museo de Piratería, with another room given over to the US-Spanish naval battle that took place in the bay in 1898. The fort, like Havana, has a cañonazo ceremony (firing of the cannon) each day at sunset when actors dress up in Mambís regalia. To get to El Morro from the city center, take bus 212 to Ciudamar and walk the final 20 minutes. Alternatively, a round-trip taxi ride from Parque Céspedes with wait should cost no more than CUC$25.
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Malecón
The Malecón, Havana's evocative 7km-long sea drive, is one of the city's most soulful and quintessentially Cuban thoroughfares, and long a favored meeting place for assorted lovers, philosophers, poets, traveling minstrels, fishers and wistful Florida-gazers. The Malecón's atmosphere is most potent at sunset, when the weak yellow light from creamy Vedado filters like a dim torch onto the buildings of Centro Habana, lending their dilapidated facades a distinctly romantic quality. Laid out in the early 1900s as a salubrious oceanside boulevard for Havana's pleasure-seeking middle classes, the Malecón expanded rapidly eastward in the century's first decade, with a mishmash of architecture that mixed sturdy neoclassicism with whimsical art nouveau. By the 1920s the road had reached the outer limits of Vedado, and by the early 1950s it had metamorphosed into a busy six-lane highway that carried streams of wave-dodging Buicks and Chevrolets from the gray hulk of the Castillo de San Salvador de la Punta to the borders of Miramar. Today the Malecón remains Havana's most authentic open-air theater, sometimes dubbed 'the world's longest sofa,' where the whole city comes to meet, greet, date and debate. Fighting an ongoing battle with the corrosive effects of the ocean, many of the thoroughfare's magnificent buildings now face decrepitude, demolition or irrevocable damage. To combat the problem, 14 blocks of the Malecón have been given special status by the Office of the City Historian in an attempt to stop the rot. The Malecón is particularly evocative when a cold front blows in and massive waves crash over the sea wall. The road is often closed to cars at these times, meaning you can walk right down the middle of the empty thoroughfare (and get very wet).
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Capitolio Nacional
The incomparable Capitolio Nacional is Havana's most ambitious and grandiose building, constructed after the post-WWI boom ('Dance of the Millions') gifted the Cuban government a seemingly bottomless vault of sugar money. Similar to the Capitol in Washington, DC, but actually modeled on the Panthéon in Paris, the building was initiated by Cuba's US-backed dictator Gerardo Machado in 1926 and took 5000 workers three years, two months and 20 days to construct, at a cost of US$17 million. Formerly the Capitolio was the seat of the Cuban Congress, then from 1959 to 2013 it housed the Cuban Academy of Sciences and the National Library of Science and Technology. The building underwent a massive refurbishment between 2013 and 2019, reopening in time for Havana’s 500th anniversary. Guided tours leave on the hour and take in most of the main features, including the palatial hallways, the chamber of representatives and the newly established Tumba del Mambí Desconocido (Tomb of the Unknown Soldier). Constructed with white Capellanía limestone and block granite, the building has an entrance guarded by six rounded Doric columns atop a staircase that leads up from Paseo de Martí (Prado). Looking out over the Havana skyline is a 62m stone cupola topped with a replica of 16th-century Florentine sculptor Giambologna's bronze statue of Mercury in the Palazzo del Bargello. Set in the floor directly below the dome is a copy of a 24-carat diamond. Highway distances between Havana and all sites in Cuba are calculated from this point. The entryway is accessed by a sweeping 55-step staircase guarded by two giant statues carved by Italian sculptor Angelo Zanelli: El Trabajo and La Virtud Tutelar. The main doors open into the Salón de los Pasos Perdidos (Room of the Lost Steps, so named because of its unusual acoustics), at the center of which is a magnificent statue of La República, an enormous bronze woman standing 17.6m tall and symbolizing the mythic Guardian of Virtue and Work. The 30-tonne statue is covered in gold leaf and is the third-largest indoor statue in the world. It was carved by Zanelli in Rome and shipped to Cuba in three pieces.
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Plaza de la Catedral
Habana Vieja's most uniform square is a museum to Cuban baroque, with all the surrounding buildings, including the city's beguiling asymmetrical cathedral, dating from the 1700s. Despite this homogeneity, it is actually the newest of the four squares in the Old Town, with its present layout dating from the 18th century. On the square's eastern side, the Casa del Lombillo was built in 1741 and once served as a post office (a stone-mask ornamental mailbox built into the wall is still in use). Since 2000 it has functioned as an office for the City Historian. On the western side is the majestic Palacio de los Marqueses de Aguas Claras, completed in 1760 and widely lauded for the beauty of its shady Andalusian patio. Today it houses the Restaurante Paris. The south side is taken up by the resplendent Palacio de los Condes de Casa Bayona, built in 1720, which today hosts the Museo de Arte Colonial.
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Castillo de los Tres Santos Reyes Magnos del Morro
This wave-lashed fort with its emblematic lighthouse was erected between 1589 and 1630 to protect the entrance to Havana harbor from pirates and foreign invaders (French corsair Jacques de Sores had sacked the city in 1555). Perched high on a rocky bluff above the Atlantic, the fort has an irregular polygonal shape, 3m-thick walls and a deep protective moat, and is a classic example of Renaissance military architecture. For more than a century the fort withstood numerous attacks by French, Dutch and English privateers, but in 1762, after a 44-day siege, a 14,000-strong British force captured El Morro by attacking from the landward side. The Castillo's famous lighthouse was added in 1844. Aside from fantastic views over the sea and the city, El Morro hosts several exhibits, including a riveting account of the fort's siege and eventual surrender to the British that uses words (in English and Spanish) and paintings.
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Fusterlandia
Where does art go after Antoni Gaudí? For a hint, head west from central Havana to the seemingly low-key district of Jaimanitas, where artist José Fuster has turned his home neighborhood into a masterpiece of intricate tile work and kaleidoscopic colors – a street-art wonderland that makes Barcelona’s Park Güell look positively sedate. Imagine maximal-impact Gaudí relocated to a tropical setting. The result is what is unofficially known as Fusterlandia, an ongoing project first hatched around 20 years ago that has covered several suburban blocks with whimsical but highly stylized public art. The centerpiece is Fuster’s own house, Taller-Estudio José Fuster, a sizable residence decorated from roof to foundations with art, sculpture and – above all – mosaic tiles of every color and description. The overall impression defies written description (just go!): it's a fantastical mishmash of spiraling walkways, rippling pools and sunburst fountains. The work mixes homages to Pablo Picasso and Gaudí with snippets of the style of Paul Gauguin and Wifredo Lam, magic realism, maritime motifs, aspects of Santería, the curvaceous lines of modernisme, and a large dose of Fuster’s own Cubanness, which runs through almost everything. Look for the Cuban flags, a mural of the Granma yacht, and the words 'Viva Cuba' emblazoned across eight chimney pots. Fusterlandia stretches way beyond Fuster’s own residence. Over half the neighborhood has been given similar treatment, from street signs to bus stops to the local doctor’s house. Wandering around its quiet streets is a surreal and psychedelic experience. Jaimanitas is located just off Quinta Avenida (Av 5) in the far west of Playa, sandwiched between Club Havana and Marina Hemingway. A taxi from central Havana will cost CUC$12 to CUC$15.
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Museo Conjunto Histórico de Birán
Fidel Castro Ruz was born on August 13, 1926, at the Finca Las Manacas near the village of Birán, south of Cueto. The sprawling ranch, bought by Fidel's father Ángel in 1915, includes its own workers' village (a cluster of small thatched huts for the mainly Haitian laborers), a cockfighting ring, butcher's shop, post office, store and telegraph. The several large yellow wooden houses surrounded by lush cedars housed the Castro family. Tours are thorough and very worthwhile. The farm opened as Museo Conjunto Histórico de Birán in 2002, its unassuming name intending to downplay any Castro 'personality cult.' This gaggle of attractive wooden buildings on expansive grounds constitutes a pueblito (small town) and makes a fascinating excursion. It appears as a backwater today, but once sat on the camino real, Cuba's main east–west road in colonial times. Around the various houses, you can see more than a hundred photos, assorted clothes, Fidel's childhood bed and his father's 1918 Ford motorcar. Perhaps most interesting is the schoolhouse where Fidel first studied before moving on to Santiago as an outstanding pupil. Fidel sat in the middle of the front row. There are pictures of young Fidel and Raúl and Fidel's birth certificate, made out in the name of Fidel Casano Castro Ruz. A cemetery contains the grave of Fidel and Raúl's father, Ángel, and siblings. The site illustrates, if nothing else, the extent of the inheritance that this hot-headed ex-lawyer gave up when he absconded to the Sierra Maestra for two years, surviving on a diet of crushed crabs and raw horse meat. Finca Las Manacas was the first property to be appropriated by the government after the revolution. Those who come on their own should bring a detailed map. Otherwise, tour agencies offer it as a day trip from Holguín.
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Plaza Vieja
Laid out in 1559, Plaza Vieja is Havana's most architecturally eclectic square, where Cuban baroque nestles seamlessly next to Gaudí-inspired art nouveau. Originally called Plaza Nueva (New Square), it was initially used for military exercises and later served as an open-air marketplace. During the regime of Fulgencio Batista an ugly underground parking lot was constructed here, but this monstrosity was demolished in 1996 to make way for a massive renovation project. Sprinkled liberally with bars, restaurants and cafes, Plaza Vieja today has its own microbrewery, the Angela Landa primary school, a beautiful fenced fountain and, on its western side, some of Havana's finest vitrales (stained-glass windows). A number of cool bars and cafes give it a sociable buzz in the evenings.
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