Vedado

Majestic, spread-out Vedado is Havana's once-notorious Mafia-run district. During Cuba's 50-year dalliance with the US, this was the city's commercial hub and, in many ways, it still is; although these days the nightlife is less tawdry, the casinos have become discos, and the hotels seem more like historical relics than havens of luxury.

Aside from its small clutch of modernist rascacielos (skyscrapers), Vedado is a largely leafy residential quarter bisected by two wide Parisian-style boulevards and anchored by the bombastic Plaza de la Revolución and the beautifully eerie Necrópolis Cristóbal Colón.