Best neighborhoods in Havana – Lonely Planet

Havana has three indispensable city center neighborhoods that travelers with more than a couple of days on their hands should visit. 

There’s beautifully restored Habana Vieja (Old Havana), a celebrated Unesco World Heritage site; gritty Centro Habana, where theatrical street life plays out alongside palatial civic buildings and nationally important museums; and the more modern commercial hub of Vedado, whose faded 1950s glamor is reflected in its boxy skyscrapers, former mafia-run hotels and musical nightlife. Dip into all three, and you’ll get a little closer to understanding what this enigmatic city is all about.

If you’re staying longer, you’ll have time to seek out beaches, street art projects and unusual architecture in a scattering of outlying districts.

Here are the seven Havana neighborhoods that you must visit.

Habana Vieja

Best neighborhood for a history lesson

Anchored by four diminutive squares around which the original walled city grew up in the early 1500s, contemporary Habana Vieja is the result of a dynamic historical renovation project that was achieved against the odds during a time of great economic scarcity starting in the 1990s. Today, the 4 sq km (1.5 sq mile) Unesco World Heritage site is akin to a neighborhood-sized museum, but with one big difference: people live here – 100,000 of them.

The cityscape is at once grandiose and gritty. Schools and maternity homes overlook cobbled, tourist-packed squares. Meticulously restored pharmacies still hand out prescriptions to qualifying locals, while rehabilitated buildings like the deconsecrated church of San Francisco de Asís act as both a museum of religious art and Havana’s finest classical concert hall.

Containing around 900 buildings of historical importance, the neighborhood is an obligatory starting point for any tour of Havana. You can peruse dozens of museums highlighting everything from playing cards to coins. An abundance of handsome hotels are atmospherically encased in erstwhile colonial-era digs. Don’t miss arterial Calle Obispo, the always-crowded shopping street, Plaza de la Catedral with its haunting baroque church, and the bohemian bars of Plaza del Cristo, where live music seems to blast out of every nook and cranny.