Not to miss

Museo de la Revolución

Habana's largest and most definitive museum is housed in the former Presidential Palace, constructed between 1913 and 1920 and used by a string of cash-embezzling Cuban presidents, culminating in Fulgencio Batista. The world-famous Tiffany's of New York decorated the interior, and the shimmering Salón de los Espejos (Room of Mirrors) was designed to resemble the room of the same name at the Palace of Versailles.

The museum itself descends chronologically from the top floor, starting with Cuba's pre-Columbian culture and extending to the present-day Socialist regime. Much emphasis is placed on the plethora of US plots against the island, along with the achievements of the revolution. The downstairs rooms have some interesting exhibits on the 1953 Moncada attack and the life of Che Guevara. Most of the labels are in English and Spanish. In front of the building is a fragment of the former city wall as well as an SAU-100 tank used by Castro during the 1961 Battle of the Bay of Pigs. In the space behind the museum you'll find the Pavillón Granma, a memorial to the 18m yacht that carried Fidel Castro and 81 other revolutionaries from Tuxpán, Mexico, to Cuba in December 1956. The pavilion is surrounded by other vehicles associated with the revolution and is accessible from the Museo de la Revolución.

Real Fábrica de Tabacos Partagás

One of Habana's oldest cigar factories and certainly its most famous, this neoclassical Habana landmark was founded in 1845 by a Spaniard named Jaime Partagás. Today some 400 workers toil here for up to 12 hours a day, rolling such famous cigars as Montecristos and Cohibas. As far as tours go, Partagás is the most popular and reliable factory to visit.

Tour groups first check out the ground floor, where the leaves are unbundled and sorted, before proceeding to the upper floors to watch the tobacco get rolled, pressed, adorned with a band, and boxed. Though interesting in an educational sense, the tours here are often rushed and a little robotic, and some visitors find they smack of a human zoo. Still, if you have even a passing interest in tobacco, Cuban work environments or economies of scale, it's probably worth a peep.

Catedral de San Cristóbal de la Habana

Dominated by two unequal towers and framed by a theatrical baroque facade designed in the style of Italian architect Francesco Borromini, Habana's graceful Catedral de San Cristóbal was once described by Cuban novelist Alejo Carpentier as 'music set in stone'.

Pope John Paul II said one of his four Cuban Masses at the cathedral in January 1998 during a groundbreaking papal tour of the island.

When the Jesuits began construction of the church in 1748, Habana was still under the ecclesiastical control of Santiago de Cuba. Work continued despite the expulsion of the Jesuits from Cuba in 1767, and the diocese of Habana was finally created when the building was finished in 1787. A year later the city became a bishop's seat, elevating the church to a cathedral - one of the oldest in the Americas. Legend has it that the cathedral contained a dramatic funeral monument dedicated to Christopher Columbus, which held the great explorer's remains. It's said that the monument was shipped to Spain in 1898, where it is interred in Seville's cathedral.

One of the cathedral's many curiosities is its surprisingly austere classical interior, the work of a pious bishop at the beginning of the 19th century. To take a peep at the pews and altar your best bet is to slip inside during Sunday Mass.