Must see attractions in Santiago de Cuba

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…

The museum inside the Cuartel Moncada is the best in town and one of the best in Cuba. Sometimes gory exhibits catalogue the details of the 1953 attack by…

Nestled peacefully on the city's western extremity, the Cementerio Santa Ifigenia is second only to Havana's Necrópolis Cristóbal Colón in its importance…

Santiago's most important church is stunning both inside and out. There has been a cathedral on this site since the city's inception in the 1520s, though…

Santiago's famous Moncada Barracks, a crenelated art deco building completed in 1938, is now synonymous with one of history's greatest failed putsches…

The oldest house still standing in Cuba, this arresting early colonial abode dating from 1522 was the official residence of the island's first governor,…

This gorgeous yellow colonial-style building houses a museum detailing the underground struggle against Batista in the 1950s. It's a fascinating, if…

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…

This peaceful garden is a lush haven of 350 types of ferns and 90 types of orchids. It's the erstwhile private collection of santiagüero Manuel Caluff,…

Below the Tivolí quarter, this narrow park embellishes a dockside promenade opened in 1840 and redesigned in 1893. Refurbishment for the 2015…

A small, populated key near the jaws of the bay, Cayo Granma is a little fantasy island of red-roofed wooden houses – many of them on stilts above the…

While it's not as swanky as its modern Bermuda HQ, the original Bacardí factory, which opened in 1868, oozes history. Spanish-born founder Don Facundo…

This important museum is where the mulato general and hero of both Wars of Independence was born, on June 14, 1845, and exhibits highlights of Maceo's…

The music never stops on Calle Heredia, Santiago's most sensuous street and also one of its oldest. Melodies waft from the paint-peeled Casa de Cultura…

This is the site of the former Saturnino Lora Civil Hospital, stormed by Abel Santamaría and 60 others on that fateful July day (they were later tortured…

Archetype for romantic Cuban street life, Parque Céspedes is a throbbing kaleidoscope of walking, talking, hustling, flirting, guitar-strumming humanity…

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,…

Santiago's old French quarter was first settled by colonists from Haiti in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Set on a south-facing hillside…

Now housed at the Bacardí Rum Factory, this modern little museum has well-presented exhibits and multilingual guides explaining the history and…

A pedestrian-only street stretching from Plaza de Marte to the Paseo Alameda on the waterfront. Heaps of locals browse the shops and restaurants. For…