Fodor's Expert Review Cojímar

The fishing village Hemingway described in The Old Man and the Sea is modeled after this sleepy maritime hamlet where the author's wooden sportfishing craft, El Pilar, was berthed. El Torreón, the small fortress built here after the English used Cojímar as a landing point in their 1762 attack on Havana, is the site of a Hemingway bust made of brass boat propellers donated by Cojímar fishermen.

Wander around town; Gregorio Fuentes—Hemingway's skipper and pal from 1935 to 1960—once lived at Calle Pezuela 209. Gregorio provided Hemingway with a great deal of inspiration. The writer, having based the novel on the then thirtysomething Gregorio, was at a loss for a title until Gregorio shrugged and commented that, as far as he could tell, it was just about "un viejo y el mar" ("an old man and the sea").