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 Josué País García, where ballroom-dancing pensioners mix with svelte teen rap artists. One door up is Cuba's original Casa de la Trova, a beautiful balconied townhouse redolent of New Orleans' French Quarter. This block is also home to several galleries and shops selling artesanías (handicrafts).
Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
Castillo de San Pedro de la Roca del Morro
4.53 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…
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0.69 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…
1.26 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
0.08 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…
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0.7 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…
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Museo de Ambiente Histórico Cubano
0.11 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,…
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0.3 MILES
This gorgeous yellow colonial-style building houses a museum detailing the underground struggle against Batista in the 1950s. It's a fascinating, if…
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13.73 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…
Nearby Santiago de Cuba attractions
1. Casa Natal de José María Heredia y Heredia
0.01 MILES
A minuscule museum illustrating the life of one of Cuba's greatest Romantic poets and the man after whom the street is named, José María Heredia y Heredia…
2. Museo Municipal Emilio Bacardí Moreau
0.05 MILES
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…
3. Casa de la Cultura Miguel Matamoros
0.06 MILES
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…
0.06 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…
0.07 MILES
Situated opposite the Bacardí Museum, the equally Hellenic provincial government seat is another building from Cuba's 20th-century neoclassical revival…
6. Catedral de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción
0.08 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…
0.08 MILES
The Museo Arquidiocesano houses a dullish collection of furniture, liturgical objects and paintings including the Ecce Homo, believed to be Cuba’s oldest…
0.08 MILES
Archetype for romantic Cuban street life, Parque Céspedes is a throbbing kaleidoscope of walking, talking, hustling, flirting, guitar-strumming humanity…