Santiago de Cuba
Cheap Cuban hotel chain Islazul breaks out of its Soviet-themed concrete-block obsession and goes semi-colonial in this venerable beauty on Plaza de Marte. It has positive staff and 17 clean, uninspiring but high-ceilinged rooms featuring narrow singles. It's quirky in novel ways – don't be surprised if a Chinese salesperson is selling clothes out of suitcases in the hall.
The pleasant street-side restaurant is volumes better than the rooftop disco – if you're trying to sleep at 1am, that is.
Castillo de San Pedro de la Roca del Morro
4.83 MILES
A Unesco World Heritage site since 1997, the San Pedro fort sits impregnably atop a 60m-high promontory at the entrance to Santiago harbor, 10km southwest…
0.34 MILES
The museum inside the Cuartel Moncada is the best in town and one of the best in Cuba. Sometimes gory exhibits catalogue the details of the 1953 attack by…
1.53 MILES
Nestled peacefully on the city's western extremity, the Cementerio Santa Ifigenia is second only to Havana's Necrópolis Cristóbal Colón in its importance…
Catedral de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción
0.51 MILES
Santiago's most important church is stunning both inside and out. There has been a cathedral on this site since the city's inception in the 1520s, though…
0.38 MILES
Santiago's famous Moncada Barracks, a crenelated art deco building completed in 1938, is now synonymous with one of history's greatest failed putsches…
Museo de Ambiente Histórico Cubano
0.53 MILES
The oldest house still standing in Cuba, this arresting early colonial abode dating from 1522 was the official residence of the island's first governor,…
0.72 MILES
This gorgeous yellow colonial-style building houses a museum detailing the underground struggle against Batista in the 1950s. It's a fascinating, if…
13.3 MILES
The hub of the Unesco World Heritage site bestowed in 2000 upon the First Coffee Plantations in the Southeast of Cuba is this impressive two-story stone…
0.04 MILES
Guarding the entrance to the casco histórico, motorcycle-infested Plaza de Marte formerly served as a macabre 19th-century Spanish parade ground where…
0.25 MILES
On the opposite side of the street to Parque Histórico Abel Santamaría, this court building was taken by fighters led by Raúl Castro during the Moncada…
0.3 MILES
East of Parque Céspedes is the pleasant and shady Plaza de Dolores, a former marketplace now dominated by the 18th-century Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de…
4. Memorial de Vilma Espín Guillois
0.33 MILES
This erstwhile home of Cuba's former 'first lady,' Vilma Espín, the wife of Raúl Castro, and instrumental force in the success of the Cuban Revolution,…
5. Parque Histórico Abel Santamaría
0.33 MILES
This is the site of the former Saturnino Lora Civil Hospital, stormed by Abel Santamaría and 60 others on that fateful July day (they were later tortured…
0.34 MILES
The museum inside the Cuartel Moncada is the best in town and one of the best in Cuba. Sometimes gory exhibits catalogue the details of the 1953 attack by…
0.37 MILES
A worthwhile museum, this is a quick visit to study the history of Santiago's biggest shindig, the oldest and biggest Carnaval between Río and Mardi Gras…
0.38 MILES
Santiago's famous Moncada Barracks, a crenelated art deco building completed in 1938, is now synonymous with one of history's greatest failed putsches…