5 Best Sights in Havana, Cuba

At the national aquarium, you can learn about many of Cuba's 900 species of fish. Dolphin shows are very popular, and there are also sea lion shows. At the time of writing, the aquarium was open, but undergoing refurbishment.

Built on the site of the pre-Revolutionary Country Club of Havana, which was so exclusive that dictator Fulgencio Batista was denied a membership, the ISA is the country's top art school, with separate pavilions for dance, art, music, and drama. Considered Cuba's best example of post-Revolutionary architecture, its redbrick halls and pavilions are covered with Catalan vaults and cupola skylights. From the 800 students in 39 specialties have come some of Cuba's finest artists and musicians. Zaida del Río studied here, as did Emmy-winner Chucho Valdés. Many of the little trios performing all around Havana have ISA students in their ranks.

Located in a former military airfield, which has now been turned into a giant school complex called Ciudad Libertad, this museum is dedicated to the literacy crusade of 1961. During this time students and teachers took to the countryside to teach illiterate peasants to read and write.

This park is dedicated to the Mexican revolutionary agrarian reformist Emiliano Zapata (1889–1919). The Iglesia de Santa Rita, next to the park, is notable for its tower and for the sculpture of Santa Rita (by Rita Longa, whose work adorns the entrance to the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes–Colección Cubana) just inside to the left. With sensuous lips, smooth features, and graceful curves, the work was branded as too erotic to display by the early 20th-century chaplain, and the sculpture was hidden away until the mid-1990s.