Colorfully clad performers dance on stilts outside La Catedral de la Virgen María de la Concepción

Inmaculada de La Habana.

Now that Washington has eased travel restrictions to Cuba, many Americans are eager to see what
they've been missing for the last 50 years. And while some things haven't changed since the revolution
in 1959—you've heard about all those vintage cars on the road—chances are you'll pay considerably
more for a daiquiri than Ernest Hemingway did in his day. Still, travelers don't have to look hard to enjoy
the simple, and often free, pleasures of the island.

Attractions

With its baroque facade flanked by asymmetrical bell towers, La Catedral de la Virgen María de la
Concepción Inmaculada de La Habana, or theHavana Cathedral, was famously described by 20th-
century Cuban novelist Alejo Carpentier as "music set in stone." The Jesuits hired Italian architect
Francesco Borromini to design the church, which was finished in 1787, making it one of the oldest
cathedrals in the Americas. Look closely for marine fossils embedded in the walls, which were partially
constructed with coral.

The cathedral anchors Old Havana, defined by the original city walls. With a covetous eye on its natural
harbor, the Spanish founded Havana in 1519 and had built it into a fortified shipbuilding center by the
17th century. The old center was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1982 for its largely intact
layout of plazas, narrow streets, and traditional architecture. Explore the baroque and neoclassical
buildings around the five plazas (Armas, Vieja, San Francisco, Cristo, and Catedral), including private
houses with wrought ironwork, balconies, and central courtyards—some of which have seen better
days—and the stately Palacio de los Capitanes Generales (circa 1770) at the end of royal palm-lined
Armas, home to the Spanish governors until 1898. Note that the floor in front of the building is "paved"
in wood, laid on the orders of one of its former residents to dampen the clatter of horse traffic so as to
not disturb his naps.

Today, the palace houses the Museo de la Ciudad, which features 40 exhibition halls full of everything
from 19th-century horse carriages to photos of Spanish-American War battles. It's not free, but the $3
entrance fee is a small price to pay for a crash course in Cuban history.

While you're in Plaza de Armas, check out the restored 16th-century Castillo de la Real Fuerza, the
oldest fortress in the Americas. Its west tower is crowned by a bronze weather vane in the shape of a
woman holding a palm tree in one hand and a staff in the other. "La Giraldilla" is said to be Doña Inés de
Bobadilla, who looked out from the tower daily for the arrival of the galleon of her conquistador
husband, Hernando de Soto (alas, he never returned, having died in what is now Louisiana or Arkansas),
and has become the symbol of the city.

A ten-minute walk south, the lively Plaza Vieja is a microcosm of Cuban architecture, where colorful
baroque buildings are broken up by Catalan-inspired art nouveau architecture, such as the Cueto Palace,
considered the best example of art nouveau in the city.
Modeled on the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, Florida, the art deco Hotel Nacional de Cuba in Vedado
has become a Havana icon. The grand dame was built in 1930 on the site of the Santa Clara Battery (look
for two 19th-century guns on display in the garden) and was popular with American celebrities,
including Ava Gardner and Johnny Weissmuller, before the revolution. The hotel became notorious for
its turn as host to a summit of mobsters—ostensibly gathered for a Frank Sinatra concert—run by Lucky
Luciano and Meyer Lansky in December 1946. The meeting was later dramatized by Francis Ford
Coppola in The Godfather II. The public is welcome to roam the Moorish-inspired lobby and grounds
fronting the Malecón.

Culture

A near replica of its 18th-century self, Calle Mercaderes, or Merchants Street, has been impeccably
restored and pedestrianized. Amid the cool shops and cafés are a number of free museums. Casa de
Asia is one. Housed on the second floor of a colonial townhouse, the small museum celebrates Cuba's
connection to Asian culture. Thanks to trade ties, decorative arts from East Asia were all the rage with
well-heeled 19th-century families, several of whose descendants donated their collections to the
museum. One of the prized possessions is a bronze of the Hindu god Shiva, cast using the ancient lost-
wax process. Look for it in the Fidel Castro Collection, showcasing works gifted to the former president.

Other free museums on Mercaderes include the Museo del Tabaco, featuring all things tobacco, such as
the tools used to process it, as well as ashtrays and pipes; the Museo Casa de Simón Bolívar, a paean to
the liberator of Latin America housed in a neoclassical palace (see his bronze statue in a park across the
street); Museo Casa Oswaldo Guayasamín, housed in the former studio of the Ecuadorian artist who
painted Fidel Castro; and the Museo Armería 9 de Abril, which displays historic weapons and
commemorates a failed operation to overthrow the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista on April 9, 1958,
less than a year before the revolution succeeded.

See fragments of restored frescoes from the Palace of the Counts of San Esteban de Cañongo and the
Casa de Don Mariano Carbó at the Museo de Pintura Mural, housed in what is considered the oldest
house in Havana.

Falling under the category of almost free, Museo Napoleónico, spanning four floors of a Florentine
Renaissance-inspired mansion in the Vedado district, will delight history buffs (admission $3).
Accumulated by sugar baron Julio Lobo and politician Orestes Ferrera, this collection of 7,000 objects
related to Napoleon Bonaparte, including a bronze death mask made of the emperor by his personal
physician, is one of the most extensive in the world. Don't miss the view of the city from the terrace on
the fourth floor.