6 landmarks in Centro Habana with verified facts and stories most people walk right past.
Callejón de Hamel
Callejón de Hamel, Centro Habana, Havana, Cuba
Callejón de Hamel is a two-block alley in Centro Habana covered with murals, sculptures, and found-object assemblages created since 1990 by the Afro-Cuban artist Salvador González Escalona as a public monument to Afro-Cuban religion and culture.
Centro Habana
Centro Habana, Havana, Cuba
Centro Habana is Havana's most densely populated and least restored district — a grid of narrow streets between Old Havana and Vedado where the crumbling colonial and Art Deco buildings house the city's working-class population in conditions that range from precarious to beautiful.
El Capitolio
Paseo del Prado, Centro Habana, Havana, Cuba
El Capitolio is Havana's most imposing building — a neoclassical capitol completed in 1929 that was modelled on the US Capitol in Washington (though Cuban guides will tell you it's one metre taller, one metre wider, and more beautiful, all of which may be true) and served as the seat of Cuba's government until the revolution.
Gran Teatro de La Habana
Paseo del Prado, Centro Habana, Havana, Cuba
The Gran Teatro de La Habana is Cuba's national theatre — a Neo-Baroque confection built in 1915 on the foundation of an earlier 1838 theatre, where Enrico Caruso famously refused to perform in 1920 because of a hurricane warning (he was afraid of the weather, not the singing).
Paseo del Prado
Paseo del Prado, Centro Habana, Havana, Cuba
Paseo del Prado is Havana's grand 19th-century promenade — a tree-lined boulevard running from Parque Central to the Malecón that was laid out in 1772 as the first paseo outside the old city walls and remodelled in 1927-28 by the French landscape architect Jean-Claude Nicolas Forestier (who also designed Paris's Champ de Mars in its modern form).
Universidad de La Habana
San Lázaro, Centro Habana, Havana, Cuba
The University of Havana is Cuba's oldest and most prestigious university — founded in 1728 by Dominican friars and relocated to its current Vedado campus in 1902, where the Greek Revival main building (completed in 1906) sits atop a grand 88-step staircase known as the Escalinata.
Explore Centro Habana with VoiceWalks
GPS-guided narration at every landmark. Tap a spot on the map, hear the story.