La Habana Vieja (Old Havana)
Old Havana is a living museum where 500-year-old Spanish colonial architecture crumbles and gleams in equal measure, painted in faded ochre, turquoise and coral. UNESCO-listed and endlessly photogenic, it rewards every wrong turn with a courtyard fountain, a jazz trio or a mojito pressed into your palm.
The Four Great Squares
Plaza de la Catedral anchors the neighbourhood with its asymmetrical Baroque façade, flanked by aristocratic mansions turned art galleries and open-air bars. Arrive before 9 am to photograph it without the tour groups and watch locals set up their easels in the golden light.
Plaza Vieja, a few blocks south, is the most authentically restored of the four squares — its centrepiece is a 1908 Art Nouveau building housing the Cámara Oscura, a rooftop optical device that projects a live 360-degree panorama of the city. The surrounding arcades shelter craft stalls, a microbrewery and the best people-watching in Havana.
Street Life and Hidden Courtyards
Calle Obispo is the neighbourhood's pedestrian spine — narrow, loud and lined with bookshops, peso pizza counters and the legendary El Floridita bar where Hemingway drank his daiquiris. Push past the tourist scrum at the bar and order a Papa Doble at the far end, exactly as he did.
Duck into the Callejón de los Peluqueros (Barbers' Alley) off Aguiar Street to find a hand-painted open-air gallery celebrating Afro-Cuban barbershop culture. It is quiet, colourful and almost entirely off the standard itinerary — a reminder that Old Havana still has corners that belong entirely to its residents.
La Habana Vieja (Old Havana) on video
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