Must-see attractions in Santiago de Cuba Province

  • Santa Ifigenia Cemetery in Cuba; Cementerio Santa Ifigenia

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    Cementerio Santa Ifigenia

    Santiago de Cuba

    Nestled peacefully on the city's western extremity, the Cementerio Santa Ifigenia is second only to Havana's Necrópolis Cristóbal Colón in its importance…

  • Cuba, Santiago de Cuba Province, Santiago de Cuba, Lighthouse at Castillo de San Pedro de la Roca del Morro

    Castillo de San Pedro de la Roca del Morro

    Santiago de Cuba

    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…

  • Catedral de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción

    Catedral de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción

    Santiago de Cuba

    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…

  • Cuartel Moncada

    Santiago de Cuba

    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

    Santiago de Cuba

    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,…

  • Cafetal La Isabelica

    Santiago de Cuba Province

    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…

  • Museo Municipal Emilio Bacardí Moreau

    Santiago de Cuba

    Narrow Pío Rosado links Calle Heredia to Calle Aguilera and the fabulous Grecian facade of the Bacardí Museum. Founded in 1899 by the rum-magnate war hero…

  • Museo de la Lucha Clandestina

    Santiago de Cuba

    This gorgeous yellow colonial-style building houses a museum detailing the underground struggle against Batista in the 1950s. It's a fascinating, if…

  • La Gran Piedra

    Santiago de Cuba Province

    It's worth huffing and puffing the 459 stone steps to the summit of La Gran Piedra at 1234m. The huge rock on top measures 51m long and 25m high and…

  • Moncada Museum

    Santiago de Cuba

    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…

  • Basílica de Nuestra Señora del Cobre

    Santiago de Cuba Province

    Stunning as it materializes above the village of El Cobre, Cuba's most revered religious site shimmers against the verdant hills behind. Recently…

  • Granjita Siboney

    Santiago de Cuba Province

    Had the revolution been unsuccessful, this unassuming red-and-white farmhouse 2km inland from Playa Siboney on the road to Santiago de Cuba would be the…

  • Cayo Granma

    Santiago de Cuba

    A small, populated key near the jaws of the bay, Cayo Granma is a little fantasy island of red-roofed wooden houses – many of them on stilts above the…

  • Loma de San Juan

    Santiago de Cuba

    Future American president Teddy Roosevelt forged his reputation on this small hillock where, flanked by the immortal rough riders, he supposedly led a…

  • Bacardí Rum Factory

    Santiago de Cuba

    While it's not as swanky as its modern Bermuda HQ, the original Bacardí factory, which opened in 1868, oozes history. Spanish-born founder Don Facundo…

  • Laguna Baconao

    Santiago de Cuba Province

    At Laguna Baconao, 2km northeast of Los Corales, you'll find a restaurant, rowboats for hire and several short lakeside hikes, plus a forlorn-looking zoo…

  • Jardín de los Helechos

    Santiago de Cuba

    This peaceful garden is a lush haven of 350 types of ferns and 90 types of orchids. It's the erstwhile private collection of santiagüero Manuel Caluff,…

  • Museo-Casa Natal de Antonio Maceo

    Santiago de Cuba

    This important museum is where the mulato general and hero of both Wars of Independence was born, on June 14, 1845, and exhibits highlights of Maceo's…

  • Casa del Caribe

    Santiago de Cuba

    Founded in 1982 to study Caribbean life, this cultural institution organizes the Festival del Caribe and the Fiesta del Fuego every July and also hosts…

  • Calle Heredia

    Santiago de Cuba

    The music never stops on Calle Heredia, Santiago's most sensuous street and also one of its oldest. Melodies waft from the paint-peeled Casa de Cultura…

  • Parque Histórico Abel Santamaría

    Santiago de Cuba

    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…

  • Parque Céspedes

    Santiago de Cuba

    Archetype for romantic Cuban street life, Parque Céspedes is a throbbing kaleidoscope of walking, talking, hustling, flirting, guitar-strumming humanity…

  • Memorial de Vilma Espín Guillois

    Santiago de Cuba

    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,…

  • Tivolí

    Santiago de Cuba

    Santiago's old French quarter was first settled by colonists from Haiti in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Set on a south-facing hillside…

  • Parque Alameda

    Santiago de Cuba

    Below the Tivolí quarter, this narrow park embellishes a dockside promenade opened in 1840 and redesigned in 1893. Refurbishment for the 2015…

  • Plaza de la Revolución

    Santiago de Cuba

    As with all Cuban cities, Santiago has its bombastic Revolution Square. This one's placed strategically at the junction of two sweeping avenues and…

  • Museo Combate de la Plata

    Santiago de Cuba Province

    Five kilometers west of Las Cuevas (which is 40km west of El Uvero) is this small museum at La Plata, just below the highway. The first successful…

  • Monumento Al Cimarrón

    Santiago de Cuba Province

    A 10-minute hike up a stone staircase brings you to this anthropomorphic sculpture commemorating the 17th-century copper mine revolt of enslaved people…

  • Jardín Botánico Gran Piedra

    Santiago de Cuba Province

    This garden's cool, misty microclimate fosters species of bromeliads, orchids, anthuriums, tree ferns and other subtropical flora you won't encounter in…

  • Plaza de Marte

    Santiago de Cuba

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

  • Valle de la Prehistoria

    Santiago de Cuba Province

    The oddest in a plethora of bizarre attractions in Parque Baconao, this Cuban Jurassic Park mixes giant Apatosauruses with concrete cavemen and women, no…

  • Museo del Ron

    Santiago de Cuba

    Now housed at the Bacardí Rum Factory, this modern little museum has well-presented exhibits and multilingual guides explaining the history and…

  • Casa Museo de Frank y Josué País

    Santiago de Cuba

    Integral to the success of the revolution, the young País brothers organized the underground section of the M-26-7 (26th of July Movement) in Santiago de…

  • Calle José A Saco

    Santiago de Cuba

    A pedestrian-only street stretching from Plaza de Marte to the Paseo Alameda on the waterfront. Heaps of locals browse the shops and restaurants. For…

  • Museo Nacional de Transporte Terrestre

    Santiago de Cuba Province

    Anywhere besides Cuba, this alfresco car museum 2km east of Valle de la Prehistoria would impress. There's Benny Moré's 1958 Cadillac, the Chevrolet Raúl…

  • Casa de la Cultura Miguel Matamoros

    Santiago de Cuba

    The Casa de la Cultura Miguel Matamoros, on Parque Céspedes' eastern aspect, is the former San Carlos Club, a social center for wealthy santiagüeros until…

  • Maqueta de la Ciudad

    Santiago de Cuba

    Cuba is obsessed with scale city models, and Santiago, with this incredibly detailed maqueta, is no exception. Interesting historical and architectural…

  • Palacio de Justicia

    Santiago de Cuba

    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…

  • Ayuntamiento

    Santiago de Cuba

    The neoclassical Ayuntamiento was erected in the 1950s using a design from 1783 and was once the site of Hernán Cortés’ mayoral office. Fidel Castro…

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