Havana is one of the Caribbean capitals that exhibits a cultural heritage richer and older. After almost five centuries of its last settlement on the Cuban North coast, it seems to warn traveler that still this Island continues being the "Key of the New World" and the "Anti-Mural of the West Indies".

Its most legitimate and distinctive profile is offered in the historic area, officially declared Heritage of Mankind by UNESCO, but the tourist who arrives by the sea is astonished by the great complex of old fortifications that formed the old defensive military constructions of the village in the past colonial times, i.e. the Castle of the Three Kings of Morro Castle and San Carlos de la Cabaña Fortress. Inside the visitor can observe the most complete collection of arms existing in the Island or in the hall that was Che Guevara’s military headquarters when he came down the Sierra Maestra mountain range in 1959. Variety and wealth is what comprise the heritage of Havana city.

Museum of Fine Arts Contains the widest and more representative sample of the artistic national works from the 16th to the 20th centuries: engravings, paintings, sculptures, ceramics... Figures as Víctor Patricio Landaluze, Vicente Escobar, José Nicolás de la Escalera, Juan Jorge Peoli and Esteban Chartrand illustrate the colonial era. The contemporaneous epoch has its pillars in the artists that make up the different vanguard currents: Eduardo Abela, Carlos Enríquez, Fidelio Ponce de León, Amelia Peláez, Víctor Manuel... Its gallery of European art excels and ranges from the Middle Ages to the renaissance. From Spain: Goya, Zurbarán, Murillo, El Greco, Zuluoga and, specially, Sorolla, of whom there is a set of several works. From France, Corot and Delacroix, among others, of the British painting collection excels: Rommey Reynalds, Lawrence, Gainsborough...

But perhaps nothing is so dangerous as to find in this site, a notable testimony of the ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman civilizations.

Museum of Colonial Art Located in one of its primitive household constructions of aristocratic character in Havana: the mansion known as "House of the Bayona Count and Countess”. It is a splendid palace, integrated to Cathedral Square with marble floors and formidable roofs of mahagony. Its 18th-century architecture illustrates a significant moment of the economic development of Cuba and among the construction materials used are the conchiferous stone, bricks and precious stones. The visitor that steps into his halls will find an architectural sample, decoration and furniture, typical of the Creole wealthy families during the 18th and 19th centuries.

Museum of Music An indispensable entity in a country where its population has a high rhythmical knack and where in this field has made notable contribution to the world culture because of the originality of its melodies, composers and interpreters. The wide and rich exhibition is essentially dedicated to the history of this art and to the evolution of the Cuban musical instruments of the 16th century until our days. Old horns, sound-making items of aboriginal origen, Afro-Cuban drums preserved by Don Fernando Ortiz, the Third Discoverer of Cuba; the rattles from Mali, in the western coast of Africa; diverse pieces used by the Abakuá sect. A wide graphic sample that includes photographs of orchestras, ensembles, soloists and authors whose works have contributed to the vast international prestige of the Cuban music.

Museum of decorative Arts Situated in a building that reproduces the architectural model of a French mansion of the 18th century. Designed to expose the most diverse artistic expressions, its funds are regarded as one of the best of a great variety: from the precious and elegant spirit of French rococo to the most exquisite eastern inspirations. The visitor will find amazed, a Louis XV secretaire dedicated to the Marie Antoniette furniture, a tea set used by the diners of Tuileries Castle; a Martinot watch of golden bronze made by Caffieri, in accordance with the design of Messonier.... In brief, a whole creative delight where fine porcelain and the ornamental motifs of the luxurious serving sets used by aristocrats and burgoies of that time to calm their thirst or appetite, are on display.

Museum of Dance The exhibition shows articles most of them coming from particular collections of Prima Ballerina Assoluta Alicia Alonso and other famed Cuban dancers. The articles there exhibited are material and documentary testimonies which have arrived in a fair and necessary moment for the performers of a cultural expression that is one of the great contributions given by Cuba to the spiritual heap of mankind in ballet as a splendid cultural expression.

Haydeé Santamaría Gallery Sponsored by Casa de las Américas. It is a singular artistic ensemble, that gather paintings, tapestries, ceramics, sculptures, photographies, popular art, costumes and typical articles of every nation of the area, mostly donated by their own authors who for decades have kept it in close contact with the institution. This sample, well-nurtured, interesting and multipurpose, offers a panorama of the development of this geographic territory that goes from Río Bravo to Patagonia, thus named "Our America" by José Martí.

Napoleonic Museum The fact may appear to be an exotic or picturesque adventure; but these collections have a fabulous and very Cuban history that illustrates the financial thrust of the Republican burgoisie in Cuba. The articles were bought by Julio Lobo, a powerful magnate, an owner of strong and numerous industrial businesses that because of its braveness and economic power, almost became a Bonaparte in the field of sugar. What the famous Corsican achieved in Europe, the Cuban was able to attain with the products that come from sugar cane juice: power, influence and wealth. It’s no wonder that the French emperor was his idole and that the Cuban used part of his fortune to purchase the items related to the memories of that apoteosical campaign. T. A very special interest offers the varied examples of arms: rifles, old pistols, sabers, swords and even two cannons of 70 kg, used by the artillerymen from the First and Second Empires. This is an expression of the military power of an army that altered for a while the sacred tranquility of the planet. Regarding the Russian campaign in 1812, articles related to the guerrillas organized by the defenders can be seen such as a garrote and a jacket that belonged to the members. An oil of Edouard Detaille recalls another of its temerary invading crusades: Bonaparte in Egypt, around the charms of a culture.

Museum of the City. The very Palace is an illustrative exhibition of its constructive processes. It’s shown the Throne that still preserves a seat made of wood and red velvet, designed for the Spanish monarch in the patient waiting of an official visit that in the course of four centuries never paid. The funds, numerous and rich offer a multipurpose vision of the Cuban evolution. Articles that belong to great personalities of history—José Martí, Máximo Gómez, Antonio Maceo—and the main banners of Ejército Libertador (Freedom Army), among them that hoisted by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, the Father of the Homeland, when he raised in arms on October 10, 1868. To this, we can sum up a copious documentation, carefully kept.

Museum of the Revolution The building has been the scenario of many significative moments of the nation. It was the residence of most of Cuban mandataries of the Republic, and embraced the first revolutionary government, determined to transform all the structures of the Caribbean island. Personal relics of heros and martyrs, arms, photographs, publications, valuable documents and many cinematographic materials shape the collections of this institution. The exhibition shows articles of a highly patriotic nature, a gold watch used by Céspedes, remains of an undershirt used by Maceo, when falling in Punta Brava on December 7, 1896; a coffee cup used by Francisco Vicente Aguilera, the metal box where the remains of the student leader Julio Antonio Mella returned to Cuba, murdered in Mexico; a suit used by Antonio Guitera during the Government of the Hundred Days, the dish where Che Guevara had his last meal at the little Bolivian house of La Higuera, served by the teacher of that place in October 1967, the sextant that came in Granma boat along with the revolutionaries led by Fidel.

José Martí Birth house It is a modest dwelling, whose superior floor was inhabited by the family of the hero. The patriotic popular fervor unleashed after the freedom epopee that concluded in 1898 influenced in the State decision of turning the building into a commemorative historic museum with the aim of rendering permanent honor to the great patriot, educator and writer. At present the house is venerated as a temple. It keeps and exhibits valuable material and documentary evidence linked to the life and work by the Apostle, the shackle that dragged held to his leg as an opprobious thorn, during his permanence in the political prison and that he was the first to preserve it; his photograhs and different editions of his works; personal items and other articles that were with him when his fatal death ocurred in a place by the name of Dos Ríos (Two Rivers) on May 19, 1895.... Everything is there, with the effects of the passing time, but fortunately saved, distilling the same tenderness and the same love that Martí unleashed in every human endeavor.

Montané Anthropological Museum Situated at Ignacio Agramonte Square of the University of Havana, the exhibition displays testimonies of the cultural aboriginal groups, the person who wants to know the development of prehistory community that inhabited the Cuban territory will find there interesting samples that range from the dietary regime of the least complex Siboneyes to the outfits of the most advanced Taínos, engaged in agriculture and pottery, instruments of work, hand-made receptacles and ceremonial or religious articles which illustrate the overwhelming wealth of these primitive beings

Carlos J. Finlay Museum of Science The building that houses this museum was declared national monument for being regarded as a site of singular historical transcendence. San Francisco Convent was housed here. The presentation of Finlay’s thesis on the transmission of yellow fever; development of the course on logics by Professor Enrique José Varona; the known Protest of Thirteen led by Martínez Villena; the public address of Albert Einstein when he visited Cuba on December 19,1930... The exhibition is aimed at showing a panorama of the Cuban scientific development through time, from the colonial times to the recent revolutionary period. The most celebrated figures of the national science are there represented as Finlay, Felipe Poey or Carlos de la Torre, but also universal celebrities are included: Humboldt, Pasteur... One of the most outstanding exponents dates back from 1849: the bust of Tomás Romay, the introducer of the vaccine in Cuba.

Felipe Poey Natural Sciences Museum It has as a basic premise to display the evolution of life and the different species that make up Cuban flora and the fauna. It has extensive and rich collections with species from Cuba and other continents. But it worths to mention first of all the rarest endemic species for their typical nature and singularity: the real carpenter, or little zun zun or fly bird—the smallest one of the world—which is exclusive of Cuba.

Carlos J. Finlay Tropical Medicine Hospital Located in an area of General Calixto García Teaching Hospital. Several samples of parasitism caused by indigenous germs and others produced by exotic agents are on display in their halls. A hall has also a historic collection formed by medals, diplomas and other personal items which belonged to Dr. Pedro Kouri, the founder of the Institute of Tropical Medicine in 1937.

Museo Postal de Cuba (Mail Museum) The exhibition deals with the mail and philatelic history. Its funds comprise more than half a million stamps and philatelic pages coming from almost all the countries of the world and a copious documentation related with the Cuban mail in particular and in general with the whole process of communications in an island that in the colonial epoch was the bridge between Spain and the other overseas territories of the metropolis. Remarkable exponents are the first seal of Universe that was first released in England on May 6, 1840; strophies won by the Cuban branch in world exhibitions

The Numismatic Museum It was inaugurated in 1975 where coins, decorations, sugar mill cards, bonuses, paper currency, medals, lottery tickets, other documents of this specialty and even false currencies detected in the island. Extremely valuable funds for the history of Cuban numismatics are also gathered ranging from the 16th century until our days. Worthy of attention are among them the tickets corresponding to Carlos Manuel de Céspedes’ term, first President of the Republic in Arms; the patterns of 1870, souvenir coins and those of 1898, the many bonuses issued during the colonial period and the like.

Museums near Havana On 23rd and O streets in Vedado is Abel Santamaría Museum, an apartment where the preparations for the attack on the Moncada Barracks were made that took place on July 26, 1953. At Párraga quarter is Hurón Azul, a house of two floors where lived and died Carlos Enríquez, an outstanding painter of the vanguard painting movement in Cuba. In the Alejo Carpentier Foundation lpersonal articles, documents and books of the celebrated novelist, Cervantes Prize winner in 1978, are on display. .A legendary air is breathed and an accomplice that makes of the whole city a large museum, always receptive to the heat of the curious look. To visit this place is to know the past blend with the present. To go around is to gain in knowledge and enrich the spirituality.