21 Best Sights in Cuba

No matter what your politics, a visit to Santa Clara's most famous attraction is a must if you wish to understand modern Cuba's complex history. A massive bronze sculpture of iconic revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara looms over a site containing his tomb and a museum dedicated to his life. Exhibits under the statue—the entrance is around the back—chronicle Che's eventful life, from his happy childhood in Argentina, to his life-changing 1950's journey through South America chronicled in his own journals and the 2004 film The Motorcycle Diaries, to his 1967 assassination in Bolivia. Exhibits here primarily concentrate on his involvement in the Cuban Revolution. The cave-like mausoleum next door holds the remains of Che and 16 others who fought and died with him in the mountains of Bolivia—they weren't discovered and identified by forensic anthropologists until 1997, and the remains didn't arrive in Cuba until 1998.

This is hallowed ground to the lines of Cubans who file through, and proper hushed decorum is required.

Photography is permitted outside the complex but not inside.

The restored San Francisco de Paula Church stands in a plaza at the edge of the harbor at the southern end of the Alameda de Paula. Built between 1730 and 1745 as part of what was then a hospital for women, its facade is described as "pre-Churrigueresque," meaning that it was done prior to the popular exuberant baroque style for which Spanish architect José Benito Churriguera is known. The church fell into disrepair in the 20th century, when the adjoining hospital was moved far from the uproarious port. Restored in early 2001 and filled with Cuban art (including a series of crosses by prominent contemporary painter Zaida del Río), the church is now often used as a concert hall and art gallery.

This house is named for the obra pía (pious work) with orphans that was carried out here in colonial times. Its elaborately wrought Baroque doorway is thought to have been carved in Cádiz around 1686. The architecture of the interior patio is based on North African fondouks (inns) and, later, of Spanish corralas (patios). There's much to see here: arches of different sizes and shapes, vases decorated with paintings by Spanish painter Ignacio Zuloaga, as well as a collection of old sewing machines and needlecraft paraphernalia.

The Alejo Carpentier artifacts (including the car he used in Paris) are still there, but locked up in a special room that you must get permission ahead of time to see.

The city's bright yellow Neoclassical cathedral, with its high central bell tower reminiscent of a minaret, was consecrated in 1870. Its interior is less impressive than the renovated exterior, but it does feature a statue of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception—the city's patron saint—and stained glass windows from France that depict the 12 apostles.

Recently restored on the outside, this massive, Neoclassical church with two ornate towers is famous for its interior frescoes. In front of the church, there is a huge ceiba tree with a heavy, metal bell hanging from one of the branches, commemorating the bells that were rung to call in slaves from the sugar plantations. On the ground below lies a large, antique metal gear from a sugar mill.

Dedicated to and named for the great Cuban Surrealist painter Wifredo Lam, who was known as the Cuban Picasso, this gallery and museum is just behind the Catedral de la Habana in the elegant, 18th-century Casa del Obispo Peñalver. The center hosts temporary shows with works by contemporary Cuban and South American artists. Lam, born in 1902, studied in Spain and fought with the republic against Franco. He later fled to France, where he was influenced by Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and the poet André Breton, among others. He returned to Cuba to support the Revolution, and later returned to Paris, where he died in 1982. His best works hang in the Cuban collection of Havana's Museo de Bellas Artes.

At this casual farm-cum-zoo visitors can see two of Cuba's distinctive animals: the manjuarí, a primitive water creature with an alligator-like head and a fish body, and the jutía, a large-eared, muskrat-like tree rat, once prized for guajiro stews. Scattered around the farm yard there are deer, peacocks, rabbits, ducks, and guinea fowl. At the guarapa bar, you can buy a glass of fresh-pressed cane juice, with or without rum (CUC$2). The musical entertainment is provided by a caged Cuban Bullfinch, a small black bird, so prized for its song that Cubans organize bird-song competitions. There's no entrance fee to the farm but there are souvenir kiosks scattered around, and an open-air restaurant ($) mostly set up for tour-group buffets.

Havana's oldest church (circa 1638) was built by Afro-Cubans who were brought to the island as slaves but who later bought their freedom, a common phenomenon in Cuba. Fittingly, today it's the only church in the city authorized to grant political asylum. Its interior has several notable paintings; notice especially the representation of a seated, post-Crucifixion Christ on the right wall. The crypt under the left of the altar contains catacombs. The three-story belfry to the left of the church is one of La Habana Vieja's tallest towers.

Although originally founded in 1640 as the Ermita de Nuestra Señora del Buen Viaje, the present church was built in 1755. The advocation to the buen viaje (good voyage) was a result of its popularity among seafarers in need of a patron and a place to pray for protection. The Baroque facade is notable for the simplicity of its twin hexagonal towers and the deep flaring arch in its entryway. Traditionally the final stop on the Vía Crucis (Way of the Cross) held during Lent, the church and its plaza have an intimate and informal charm. This is the plaza where Graham Greene's character Wormold (the vacuum-cleaner salesman/secret agent) is "swallowed up among the pimps and lottery sellers of the Havana noon" in Our Man in Havana.

Don't miss the view from the corner of Amargura: you can see straight down Villegas to the dome of the old Palacio Presidencial (Presidential Palace).

Although it was begun in 1755, this church and convent complex wasn't completed until the 19th century. Hence you can clearly see a progression of architectural styles, particularly in the facade, with its six starchy-white pillars and its combination of late-Baroque and early-Neoclassical elements. Inside are numerous works by 19th-century Cuban painters.

South of Playa Larga, on the east side of the Bay of Pigs, lies this natural aquarium in a 61-meter-deep (201-foot-deep) cenote (a flooded sinkhole filled with multicolor fish that swim in from the bay via a subterranean passage). Diving through the banks of fish and the lush subaquatic vegetation is superb. There is no entrance fee—you walk along a short, shaded trail to the pool and dive in. There's a makeshift, on-site dive shop with tanks, as well as snorkeling gear to rent. If you plan on doing a lot of snorkeling and care about hygiene, bring along your own mask. You can also snorkel from the beach, across the road from the entrance to the cenote. La Casa del Pescador

(see Where to Eat, below)

is next to the cenote.

This still functioning Art Nouveau pharmacy may sometimes be short on drugs, but it is certainly long on design. Founded by a Catalan apothecary in 1874, it was built in the elaborate Modernist style universally favored by 19th-century pharmacies. The carved wooden racks and shelves backed by murals painted on glass are especially ornate, and the ceramic apothecary jars, though probably empty, are colorfully painted. Also known as La Reunión (note the inscription on the wall behind the counter), this pharmacy was a famous meeting place, a sort of informal neighborhood clubhouse.

This attractive, leafy square is the heart of the city. A bronze statue of 19th-century liberal revolutionary leader José Martí presides over the plaza, accompanied by a startling sculpture of a screaming, bare-breasted woman representing Cuba breaking free from her chains. Around the square are beautifully restored Neoclassical buildings, including the Museo Farmaceútico Triolet, the restored Sala de Conciertos José White, and the magnificently refurbished Velasco Hotel, next door to the handsome Velasco Theater. Nearby bookshops and cafés are bustling, and there's almost always some music or street theater going on in the square.

This once-elegant, arched bridge over the Yumurí Estuary used to set a Parisian, Seine-like scene. Built in 1878, with two imposing carved columns at each end, it connected the barrio of Versalles, named for resident wealthy French coffee planters, and the city. Although it's currently in sad shape, it's still one of the most striking pieces of Matanzas architecture. The Cuban government used to give replicas of the columns as official gifts to visiting dignitaries.