Habana Vieja (Old Havana)

A look around

What you’ll be living next to. Swipe through.

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Where it sits

The circle is Habana Vieja and roughly a 10-minute walk around it.

How far is everything?

From the middle of this area to the city's headline sights — pick your own on the city page and these become your list.

• A vintage car ride10 min walk818 m
• Callejón de Hamel25 min walk2.0 km
• Cuban food & paladares26 min walk2.2 km
• The Malecón9 min taxi2.9 km
• Live salsa & son10 min taxi3.2 km
• Hotel Nacional10 min taxi3.2 km
• Plaza de la Revolución13 min taxi4.2 km
• Havana nightlife15 min taxi4.9 km

On your doorstep

What you’re living next to if you stay here.

• 1.Habana Vieja (Old Havana) — The magnificent, UNESCO-listed soul of the city — Old Havana, a magical maze of cobbled streets and grand colonial plazas (Plaza Vieja, Plaza de la Catedral, Plaza de Armas), beautifully restored mansions, cathedrals, museums, rum bars and music at every turn. Simply wandering its atmospheric streets, soaking up the faded grandeur, the vintage cars, the salsa and the life, is the essential Havana experience. Go by day for the beauty and evening for the magic; it feels like a living museum. Utterly captivating and unmissable. The heart of the city.
• 4.Rum, mojitos & Hemingway's bars — Havana is the home of the mojito and the daiquiri, and drinking one where Hemingway did is essential — sip a mojito at La Bodeguita del Medio and a daiquiri at El Floridita (his favourite haunts), or find your own rum bar with live son and salsa. Cuban rum flows everywhere, cheap and excellent, and the cocktails are the real thing. Toast the city with a rum cocktail amid live music; it's a delicious, atmospheric and quintessentially Havana ritual. A tasty, unmissable highlight. Salud, and enjoy the music.
• 6.The colonial plazas — Old Havana is built around a series of beautiful colonial squares, each with its own character — the elegant Plaza Vieja with its restored mansions and courtyards, the cathedral-fronted Plaza de la Catedral, the leafy Plaza de Armas with its book market, and the grand Plaza de San Francisco by the port. Plaza-hopping between them, pausing at a café or for live music, admiring the arcades and pastel facades, is one of the great pleasures of the old town. A lovely, atmospheric and central highlight. Simply gorgeous; the heart of colonial Havana.
• 7.Havana Cathedral & Plaza — One of the most beautiful spots in the old town — the Havana Cathedral, a magnificent Cuban Baroque church of curving, weathered stone with two asymmetrical bell towers, fronting the lovely cobbled Plaza de la Catedral, ringed by colonial mansions (one now a restaurant, another the home of a rum museum). Admire the striking facade, step inside the church, and soak up the atmosphere of the plaza with its cafés and buskers. A beautiful, photogenic and central highlight of Old Havana. A must-see; especially lovely in the morning light. Serene and grand.