Founded in 1519 and fortified against pirates, Havana grew rich on sugar and slavery, then froze in 1959. Three days trace that arc: Castillo del Morro's cannon, the Cathedral's baroque façade, Che's Ministry of Industry and the Granma yacht in its glass case.
The Americas' oldest surviving stone bastion fort (1558–1577), built after French corsair Jacques de Sores burned Havana in 1555. Inside: a naval museum of shipwreck silver and a 1:1 model of the Santísima Trinidad. Open Tue–Sun 09:30–17:00.
Cuban baroque built by Jesuits 1748–1777 from coral limestone still studded with marine fossils. Its two bell towers are deliberately unequal so rainwater could drain into the plaza. Columbus's remains lay here 1796–1898 before shipping to Seville.
Seat of 65 Spanish governors from 1791, then the US military governor, then Cuba's presidents until 1920. Plaza de Armas outside is paved in wooden blocks laid in 1834 to muffle carriage noise disturbing the captain-general's sleep.
Laid out in 1559 as Plaza Nueva, used for executions, bullfights and a slave market. Ringed by 17th–19th century mansions with stained-glass mediopuntos. The Gómez Vila tower's camera obscura projects live 360° views of the old city.
Batista's 1920 Presidential Palace, its marble staircase still pocked by bullet holes from the failed 1957 student assault. Behind it, the yacht Granma that carried Castro's 82 rebels from Mexico in 1956 sits sealed in glass, flanked by a Soviet SAU-100 tank.
A 72,000 m² parade ground where Fidel addressed crowds of a million. The Interior Ministry wall carries Che's steel outline with 'Hasta la Victoria Siempre'; the Communications building opposite bears Camilo Cienfuegos and 'Vas bien, Fidel'.
A 109m marble star-shaped tower from 1958, Cuba's tallest structure, with an 18m seated Martí carved from Isla de la Juventud marble. A lift reaches the 129m viewing deck; the base museum covers Martí's exile years and death at Dos Ríos in 1895.
Spain's largest colonial fortress (1763–1774), built after the British held Havana for eleven months in 1762. Che ran revolutionary tribunals from its Comandancia in 1959. Soldiers in 18th-century uniform fire the 21:00 cannon nightly.
Housed in a former slave-trader's warehouse on Obrapía, this museum holds Fernando Ortiz's ethnographic collection and Yoruba, Congo and Abakuá ritual objects brought by the roughly 780,000 Africans enslaved in Cuba's sugar economy.
Cuba got railways in 1837, before Spain itself, hauling sugar from mills to port. The old Cristina terminus displays La Junta (an 1842 Baltimore-built locomotive), steam engines from Hershey's electric sugar line, and hand-worked signalling gear.
A 56-hectare 1876 necropolis laid out on a Roman grid with 500 major mausoleums — sugar barons, chess champion Capablanca, and La Milagrosa, whose 1901 tomb draws women who knock the brass ring and leave walking backwards.
A two-block alley in a barrio built for tobacco workers and freed slaves, painted from 1990 by Salvador González with Afro-Cuban Regla de Ocha symbolism. Bathtubs and pipework become shrines to Yemayá, Changó and Elegguá.