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 Fidel Castro on the barracks, and always the narrative skews to revolutionary glory.
Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
Castillo de San Pedro de la Roca del Morro
5.16 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…
1.51 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
0.75 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…
-
0.07 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
0.76 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,…
-
0.98 MILES
This gorgeous yellow colonial-style building houses a museum detailing the underground struggle against Batista in the 1950s. It's a fascinating, if…
-
13.16 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…
-
Museo Municipal Emilio Bacardí Moreau
0.64 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…
Nearby Santiago de Cuba attractions
0.07 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…
0.09 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
0.13 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…
0.31 MILES
Guarding the entrance to the casco histórico, motorcycle-infested Plaza de Marte formerly served as a macabre 19th-century Spanish parade ground where…
5. Memorial de Vilma Espín Guillois
0.49 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,…
0.54 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…
7. Casa Museo de Frank y Josué País
0.57 MILES
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…
0.62 MILES
Situated opposite the Bacardí Museum, the equally Hellenic provincial government seat is another building from Cuba's 20th-century neoclassical revival…