Travel bucket list idea:
Havana, Cuba
Havana’s rich, eclectic architectural fabric spans 500 years of Spanish Colonial, American and Independence buildings.
The Old City, a UNESCO-listed World Heritage Site, offers up a feast of eye-catching Spanish colonial buildings – plazas, churches, mansions and civic buildings – all hallmarked with Andalucian decorative flourishes. The rest of the city, much of it neglected and crumbling, boasts an equally fascinating mix of art deco, art nouveau, modernist and colonial wonders.
Havana, Cuba
Experience
Built in 1930, this 12-storey art deco masterpiece, topped by a ziggurat and the iconic bat motif, was the former headquarters of the rum giant. The preserved art deco-styled interior is equally dazzling.
Good for age: 18+
Havana, Cuba
Experience
Dating from the 19th century, Havana’s remarkable cemetery is an architectural gem, home to marble mausoleums, winged angels, sparkling mosaics, wrought-iron motifs, Art Deco sculptures, vast government monuments and 1959 Revolution memorials.
Good for age: 13+
Havana, Cuba
Experience
The neo-Moorish facade of the Hotel Sevilla is a Havana architectural highlight. The hotel was one of the city’s best in its early 20th-century heyday, accommodating mobsters, movie stars, and Graham Greene.
Good for age: 18+
Havana, Cuba
Experience
This imposing wedding-cake mansion is the seat of the Cuban government. Stop by to see the marble 400ft Hall of the Lost Steps, the gigantic Statue of the Republic, the bronze bas-relief front doors, and the statue of the devil in a patio devoid of shade.
Good for age: 18+
Havana, Cuba
Experience
This twin-towered 18th-century masterpiece of Cuban Baroque, with beautiful undulating facade and mismatched bell towers, dominates Old Havana’s main plaza. Peek inside: the altar is made of Carrara marble and Italian frescoes crown the altar recess.
Good for age: 18+
Havana, Cuba
This Havana landmark – a huge, vanilla-hued confection looming above the sea – is the city’s most storied building. From its opening in 1930, it has hosted Olympians, presidents, Hollywood stars and mots notoriously perhaps, the Mob. Johnny ‘Tarzan’ Weissmuller dived into the Nacional pool from his room, and the Mob dined on roast flamingo during their 1946 Mafia conference.
The hotel has a unique and extraordinary history, and offers excellent daily guided tours. These fascinating tours divulge the gossip on the famous guest list, delve down into tunnels buried in the gardens dug by the government during the tense days of the 1962 Missile Crisis, and end in the ‘Hall of Fame’ – a room decorated with hundreds of photos of famous guests on the walls.
Adult price: £4
Good for age: 13+
Duration: 1+ hours
It’s easy to stroll the Old City’s winding streets; if you want to explore independently, download the Guru Maps app to your smartphone.
Guided tours, however, are very insightful; Locally Sourced Havana Tours have several different options. Cubyke offer electric bike tours of the city, which cover greater ground and are a lot of fun.
Tours are available all year round, seven days a week, on request. The Old Town is less busy in the morning before the city wakes, so that’s the best time to go.
