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Bucket list trip:

Havana 5-day Itinerary

  • Cuba

Last updated: 06 June, 2024

Where to go and what to see in Havana to get the most from your trip – a 5-day itinerary from destination expert and travel writer Claire Boobbyer.

Editor note – Claire has not included specific recommendations of where to stay each day unless it’s necessary. Instead, see the ‘Where to stay’ section in our Havana destination guide.

Day 1

6

Stroll the four main cobbled squares of Old Havana taking in a visit to the city’s baroque cathedral. Stop for a tasty seafood lunch at Paco’s Mar.

Cab to the Museum of Fine Arts for five centuries of intriguing Cuban art, then hop into a chrome-festooned convertible classic car to cruise Havana’s mesmerising oceanside boulevard, the Malecon.

Dine at La Guarida inside an ornate apartment block, enjoying alfresco drinks on its rooftop terrace.

San Cristobal Cathedral

  • Havana, Cuba

San Cristobal Cathedral

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 Museum of the Fine Arts

  • Havana, Cuba

Havana Museum of the Fine Arts

Experience

Cuba’s most impressive museum, housed in two separate buildings almost next to each other, showcases the best of Cuban art (in one building) from the 1600s to the modern day, and international artists over 5 art-filled floors of a second building.

Adult price: £6

Good for age: 18+

  • Havana, Cuba

Tourists enjoying a ride on a classic american convertible car at the famous seaside Malecon avenue in Havana

Bucket List Experience

City tours in classic cars

Americans poured into capitalist Cuba in the 50s bringing with them the latest consumer goods and beautifully finned cars.

Going for a spin in a classic, chrome-festooned gelato-coloured Chevy, Dodge or Ford – preferably a convertible – is one of the highlights of any trip to Havana.

Tourists are not permitted to drive classic cars themselves; instead, Gran Car’s vintage vehicles are dotted throughout the city, often outside the big hotels, and easily recognisable as the vehicles in the best condition on the streets.

Adult price: £560

Good for age: 18+

Duration: 1+ hours

  • Havana, Cuba

People walking and resting near the sea shore of Malecon Avenue, in the evening sunlight which reflects into Carribbean Sea, in Havana, Cuba.

Bucket List Experience

The Malecon

Known as ‘Havana’s sofa’, the Malecon, an 8km stretch of sea wall on Havana’s waterfront, is where lovers, friends, musicians, swimmers and fishermen crowd before dusk to enjoy the cooler hours.

Swing your legs over the wall with a bottle of rum, or just lean against the wall with your back to the sea to chat to locals and enjoy the stunning light on the architectural line-up that curves around the Atlantic-facing sea road.

Good for age: 13+

  • Havana, Cuba

Paladar La Guarida Restaurant staircase. The name La Guarida means means the Hideout. Teh restaurant is located on the third floor of the historic building.

Bucket List Experience

Dine at a paladar

The best way to experience Cuban cuisine, international dishes, and hospitality is to eat at a paladar – a private restaurant run by Cuban entrepreneurs. Hundreds of such private restaurants (paladares) have opened in the last 2 decades years across Havana.

Initially restricted to mom-and-pop outfits – in private homes and limited to only 12 chairs, a recent relaxation of the rules has seen these small-scale restaurants expand to fill entire homes (e.g. Otra Manera) or open in dedicated venues.

On the menu you’ll now find simple and elaborate seafood dishes, ropa vieja (shredded beef or pork and veg in a tomato-based sauce), roasted suckling pig, Cuba-made goats’ cheese, chicken Kiev (in the one Russian paladar) and Chinese dumplings (made by a Tianjin chef).

Adult price: £15+

Good for age: 18+

La Guarida

  • Havana, Cuba

Paladar La Guarida Restaurant staircase. The name La Guarida means means the Hideout. Teh restaurant is located on the third floor of the historic building.

Experience

Emerging out of the tattered shell of a handsome mansion is Havana’s most famous restaurant. (It starred in a well-known Cuban movie). Come for the building, food, ambience, and drinks on the rooftop terrace.

Adult price: £15+

Good for age: 18+

Day 2

6

Get the lowdown on Cuba’s smokes at the Partagas Cigar Factory tour in Centro Havana (Mon-Fri only; book in advance).

Taxi it back to Old Havana for an ice-cold daiquiri at Ernest Hemingway’s favourite bar, El Floridita followed by lunch at brunch favourite El Cafe.

Then cab across the Bay of Havana to see El Morro Castle, before exploring Hemingway’s home Finca Vigia (now the Hemingway Museum) in the suburbs. Return via Cojimar, Hemingway’s favourite coastal getaway.

Enjoy fine dining at Otramanera followed by live music and drinks at intimate, under-the-radar La Casa de la Bombilla Verde.

  • Havana, Cuba

Cigar factory tours

Bucket List Experience

Cigar factory tours

Winston Churchill puffed on Romeo y Julieta, Che Guevara on Montecristo, and Fidel Castro’s favourite smoke was a Cohiba.

Cuban cigars are famous around the world. There’s a reason: it’s the combination of a perfect blend of tobacco plant terroir in southwestern Cuba, the climate, and the 200 artisanal processes that crafts a cigar from its tiny beginnings as a pinhead-sized tobacco seed to luxury smoke.

There are around 40 cigar factories in Cuba, with Partagas – one of the biggest – offering tours on weekday mornings.  This is a unique chance to see the cigar-making process in one of the very few Havana factories open to the public.

Adult price: £8

Good for age: 13+

Duration: 1+ hours

El Floridita

  • Havana, Cuba

People in front of El Floridita, historic fish restaurant and famous cocktail bar in Old Havana / Habana Vieja, Cuba, that was regularly visited by Ernest Hemingway

Experience

Legendary American writer Ernest Hemingway downed a record 16 daiquiris in one sitting at this, his favourite Havana bar. The bartender mixed him a sugarless and double rum tipple and named it the Papa Doble. Come early to bag a barstool at the glamorous scarlet bar.

Min age 18

Good for age: 18+

El Cafe

  • Havana, Cuba

El Cafe

Experience

This funky, Cuban-run cafe and coffee roastery in Old Havana is a popular stop. It sells arguably Havana’s best coffee, great breakfast and exceptional sourdough sandwiches including ample vegan and vegetarian options.

Good for age: 18+

  • Havana, Cuba

In the decades spanning the 16th and 18th centuries, Cuba’s Spanish rulers built a series of imposing forts to repel rampaging buccaneers from raiding the Spanish treasure fleets in the Bay of Havana, and to fence out the English. Five hundred years on, these muscular fortresses still dominate Havana’s harbour, and have come to symbolise the city – they even appear on the city’s coat of arms.

El Morro Castle, and its lighthouse, is the most iconic and the city’s emblem. This impressive stone and coral fort, complete with cannons, defended the eastern headland of Havana Bay from pirate attacks until the end of the 18th century, when the British captured the city.

The fortress houses a display on the Italian engineers and builders of the castle. You can also climb the 19th-century lighthouse for a view of the city and Malecón.

Good for age: 13+

Hemingway Museum

  • Havana, Cuba

A bedroom at Finca La Vigia, American author Ernest Hemingway's home in La Havana Cuba, now a museum. On the bed, hunting trophies.

Experience

American novelist Ernest Hemingway lived at this hilltop farm just outside Havana for 20 years. His fishing boat, library, books, writing tower, clothes, pet graves and his now empty pool are preserved for fans of his life and literature.

Adult price: £2

Good for age: 18+

Otramanera

  • Havana, Cuba

Otramanera

Experience

Havana’s best fine dining experience. Mediterranean dishes with a light Cuban touch are served up in a minimalist space fashioned out of a modernist mansion.

Adult price: £15+

Good for age: 18+

Day 3

5

Explore the Museum of the Revolution early so you can squeeze your way through crowds for rousing rumba at Callejon de Hamel in Centro Havana (Sun only).

Cab over for delicious lunch at chef-run Grados, then continue in a classic car taxi to see historic Plaza de la Revolucion before admiring marble tombs at Christopher Columbus Cemetery.

Cruise the broad leafy avenues of El Vedado, Havana’s artsy neighbourhood.

Dine at El Cocinero, part of an old peanut oil factory, on its alfresco rooftop before slipping next door to music and entertainment venue Fabrica de Arte Cubano (Cuban Art Factory).

Museum of the Revolution

  • Havana, Cuba

Museum of the Revolution

Experience

History buffs will love the Museo de la Revolución that details the minutiae of Fidel Castro’s 1953-1959 rebel campaign, culminating in victorious revolution in the ornate surrounds of the old Presidential Palace. The outdoor exhibition displays weaponry, aeroplanes and the Granma yacht, which brought Castro from exile in Mexico to Cuba to relaunch the rebel campaign in 1956.

Adult price: £2

Good for age: 18+

  • Havana, Cuba

Street rumba

Experience

Street rumba

Invigorating, percussion-driven and sexually charged rumba, a dance rooted in the Congo and slave history, developed in the late 19th century in Havana and is still widely performed.

A number of live venues across Havana offer rumba sessions: the most colourful is in the open-air mural-covered Hamel alley; the most varied is at El Palenque where other musical varieties are also performed. The least touristy is at the crowded El Jelengue de Areito.

Good for age: 13+

Duration: -

Grados

  • Havana, Cuba

Grados

Experience

Raulito Bazuka’s old-school paladar format is updated by the smart surrounds and the wonderful food – Cuban and international flavours. Raulito was mentored by chefs at a Michelin-starred restaurant in Spain.

Adult price: £15+

Good for age: 18+

Christopher Columbus Cemetery

  • Havana, Cuba

Christopher Columbus Cemetery

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+

Cuban Art Factory

  • Havana, Cuba

No Image Available for this listing

Experience

The Fábrica de Arte Cubano is a creative powerhouse of art, photography, music and dance. All the hot stuff is inside this converted peanut oil factory with food and drinks to fuel the night. Uber popular.

Good for age: 18+

Day 4

2

Stroll Havana’s marble-lined promenade El Prado, passing Central Park, to the gold-domed Capitol building with its spectacular interiors.

Lunch at Paladar San Cristobal with its flamboyant chef, then wander the nearby streets of Chinatown swinging by the latest avant-garde art show at Galleria Continua, a converted Chinese cinema.

Cab it to national ice cream parlour Coppelia for cones before walking past iconic hotels and cinemas down to historic Hotel Nacional for a mojito overlooking the sea.

In the patio of La Bodega, dine on regional Cuban food, before enjoying live music and cocktails at Fangio close by.

National Capitol Building

  • Havana, Cuba

National Capitol Building

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

Tour the Hotel Nacional

Bucket List Experience

Tour the Hotel Nacional

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

Day 5

2

Stroll or bike the spray-painted streets of San Isidro Art District in southern Old Havana where street murals flourish in the balconied streets.

Take an insightful tour at Havana Club Rum Museum finishing with a tasting session. Lunch at hole-in-the wall Jibaro on Cuban cuisine.

Wander the streets in search of the designs and wares of Cuba’s new independent stores: Clandestina, Dador, Alma, Beyond Roots, and Memorias.

For food, service, and design, dine at Cuban restaurant Antojos before bar-hopping some of Old Havana’s new, cool watering holes for superlative cocktails. Picks include El del Frente, Bar Melodrama, and Sibarita.

San Isidro Art District

  • Havana, Cuba

No Image Available for this listing

Experience

An emerging district of street art, galleries and festivals in Southern Old Havana. Look out for cool street art, Galería Taller Gorría, and new bars and cafés.

Good for age: 18+

Havana Club Rum Museum

  • Havana, Cuba

Havana Club Rum Museum

Experience

An insightful primer on Cuba’s sugar cane and rum-making in a grand 18th-century mansion, with gorgeous stained-glass windows. Tour highlights include the working model and train of the erstwhile Cuban Hershey sugar plantation, a whiff of the base ingredient of rum – molasses – and a tasting session in the museum bar.

Adult price: £5

Good for age: 18+