Hotel Rex

Santiago de Cuba


The hotel that once served as a pre-raid base for the Moncadistas in 1953 has been reborn as a comfortable midrange accommodations option. Suspended above the motorcycle madness and musical backbeat of central Santiago, it maintains a very Cuban flair – rare for hotels here. There's a pleasant roof terrace and an interior bar with soccer on the TV.

Tranquil it isn’t; unmistakably Cuba, it most definitely is.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby Santiago de Cuba attractions

1. Plaza de Marte

0.06 MILES

Guarding the entrance to the casco histórico, motorcycle-infested Plaza de Marte formerly served as a macabre 19th-century Spanish parade ground where…

2. Palacio de Justicia

0.16 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…

3. Parque Histórico Abel Santamaría

0.24 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…

4. Moncada Museum

0.25 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…

5. Cuartel Moncada

0.29 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…

6. Memorial de Vilma Espín Guillois

0.32 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,…

7. Plaza de Dolores

0.32 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…

8. Museo del Carnaval

0.41 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…