The only nation born from a successful slave revolt wrote its history in stone, iron and timber. Three days trace it from plantation cane presses to hilltop forts built against a French return, and from quake-shattered naves to restored gingerbread mansions.
Colonial sugar-mill museum on former Damien plantation land: 18th-century French cane presses, ox-driven mills, a steam locomotive and rum stills explain the economy that 500,000 enslaved Africans overturned from 1791. Tue–Sun 9:00–17:00.
Thirteen hectares wrapped around Habitation Leclerc, the 1802 estate tied to Pauline Bonaparte and later Katherine Dunham's Vodou retreat. Overgrown stone terraces, a memorial garden for quake victims and the Dunham cultural centre.
Built 1804–1806 on Dessalines' orders and completed under Alexandre Pétion at 1,350 m, this fort guarded the young republic against a French reconquest. Restored ramparts, cannon emplacements, powder magazines and pine forest air.
Fort Jacques' unrestored twin, 300 m along the same ridge: collapsed ramparts, a stone cistern and gun platforms swallowed by pines. Named for Pétion himself, the pair formed the inland defence line shielding the capital from the mountains.
The ceremonial plaza holds Albert Mangonès' 1967 Nèg Mawon — a maroon blowing a conch with a broken shackle on his ankle — plus bronzes of Dessalines, Christophe, Pétion and Toussaint Louverture around Place des Héros de l'Indépendance.
The pink-and-white cathedral consecrated in 1914 collapsed in under a minute on 12 January 2010, killing Archbishop Joseph Serge Miot. Its rose-window arches and gutted twin towers still stand fenced off on Rue Dr Aubry.
A hilltop battery raised 1806–1812 above Bel-Air, later a Duvalier-era barracks and prison annexe, now ringed by houses built across its glacis. Iron cannon still point at the bay from the surviving stone terrace.
An 1887 gingerbread mansion that served as a US Marine hospital during the 1915–1934 occupation and became Graham Greene's Hotel Trianon in The Comedians. Fretwork verandas, turrets and a century of political ghosts.
A 1908 gingerbread house restored between 2015 and 2019 as the flagship of a style that largely survived 2010 because its braced timber frames flexed instead of shattering. Pastel fretwork, stained glass, original tile floors.
The Episcopal cathedral whose 1950–51 biblical murals by Philomé Obin, Castera Bazile and Rigaud Benoit were destroyed in the quake; three rescued panels survive on the rebuilt apse wall. Its music school still teaches on site.
The village where Georges Liautaud began cutting oil drums into iron crosses for the local cemetery in the 1950s. Around 80 ateliers now hammer flattened barrels into Vodou spirits, Erzulie hearts and trees of life.
Founded in 1995 by Michèle Pierre-Louis on Avenue Christophe, this library and cultural centre archives Haitian literature and history, runs Creole-language debates and stages evening concerts in a courtyard theatre.