On 1 January 1959 a dictator fled Cuba and a group of bearded guerrillas took power. The system they founded still governs the island more than sixty years later. Twelve stops through the Plaza de la Revolución, the cemetery of La Milagrosa, the hotel of the Mafia summit, the Afro-Cuban alley, the Malecón of the protests, Chinatown, the Capitol of the stolen diamond, the palace stormed by students, Hemingway's hotel, the square of the founding, the Plaza Vieja and the fortress where Che set up the revolutionary tribunals. Approximate audio duration: 23 minutes.
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La Habana: la Revolución, Castro, el Che y lo que vino después
El 1 de enero de 1959 un dictador huyó de Cuba y un grupo de guerrilleros barbudos tomó el poder. El sistema que fundaron sigue gobernando la isla más de sesenta años después. Doce paradas por la Plaza de la Revolución, el cementerio de la Milagrosa, el hotel de la cumbre mafiosa, el callejón afrocubano, el Malecón de las protestas, el Barrio Chino, el Capitolio del diamante robado, el palacio que asaltaron los estudiantes, el hotel de Hemingway, la plaza de la fundación, la Plaza Vieja y la fortaleza donde el Che instaló los tribunales revolucionarios. Duración aproximada de audio: 23 minutos.
Tour stops
12 stops · ~23 min of audio · 7 km on foot (~1 h 45 min walking) · about 2 h 15 min in total
You are in the Plaza de la Revolución. Look at the huge asphalt esplanade, the tower of the José Martí memorial with its marble statue, and opposite, on the facade of a ministry, the steel outline of Che Guevara. Next to it, that of Camilo Cienfuegos.
Che's face is taken from a 1960 photo by Alberto Korda. It is probably the most reproduced image of the twentieth century: T-shirts, flags, mugs. Below it reads: ever onward to victory.
The square was built in the 1950s, under the government of Fulgencio Batista, a military man who had seized power in a coup in 1952. His regime was corrupt, vio…
2
La Milagrosa
You are at the entrance to Colón Cemetery. Look at the huge stone gate with sculptures, and inside the straight avenues full of marble mausoleums, angels, crosses and chapels. It is a city of the dead with numbered streets.
It was founded in 1876 and holds more than a million dead. Much of Cuba's history is buried here: patriots of independence, presidents, musicians, writers, chess champions.
Following the people carrying flowers, look for the most visited grave: that of La Milagrosa, the Miraculous One. It is a marble figure of a woman holding a baby, surrounded by offerings.
Amelia Goyri…
3
The Mafia Summit
You are at the Hotel Nacional de Cuba. Look at the building with its two towers, the garden with palm trees and, from the terrace, the sea and the Malecón. It opened in 1930 and for decades was the hotel of Hollywood stars.
In December 1946 a very particular group of guests stayed here. Officially they had come to hear a young Frank Sinatra sing. In fact they were the bosses of the American Mafia, gathered in secret to divide up their businesses.
Among them were Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky. Lansky dreamed of turning Havana into the gambling capital of the continent, and in the 1950s he di…
4
The Gods Who Came by Ship
You are in the Callejón de Hamel. Look at the walls covered in brightly colored murals, the sculptures made from old bathtubs, wheels and scrap iron, the painted symbols, the altars. If it is Sunday at noon, you will hear rumba drums.
The artist Salvador González began painting the alley in 1990, and it became a center of Afro-Cuban culture.
To understand Cuba you have to understand this. For centuries the island lived off sugar, and sugar was made with slave labor. Cuba received hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans, above all in the nineteenth century. Slavery was abolished only in 18…
5
The Wall Where the City Sits
You are on the Malecón, by Maceo Park. Look at the long stone wall that runs along the sea for kilometers, the waves that leap over it on windy days, and on the other side the peeling facades of Centro Habana, with columns and balconies.
Construction of the Malecón began in 1901, during the American occupation that followed the war of independence against Spain. Today it is Havana's great sofa: at night it fills with couples, fishermen, musicians, friends sharing a bottle.
But it was also the stage for the tensest moments of the Revolution. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Cuba lost its m…
6
Neither Deserter nor Traitor
You are in Havana's Chinatown. Look at the Chinese-style arch over the street, the signs with characters, the restaurants. Few people of Chinese origin remain today, but this was one of the largest Chinatowns in the Americas.
Its story begins in 1847. That year the first Chinese contract laborers arrived in Cuba. The sugar plantations needed labor, and the African slave trade was being banned.
Over the following decades more than a hundred thousand men arrived from southern China. They signed eight-year contracts, but in practice they lived in conditions very close to slavery: punishments, c…
7
The Diamond of Kilometer Zero
You are in front of the Capitolio. Look at the tall dome, the enormous flight of steps, the columns. If it looks like the Capitol in Washington, that is no coincidence: it was inspired by it. In front of it pass the 1950s American cars still running as taxis.
It opened in 1929 under the government of Gerardo Machado, another president who ended up as a dictator and was overthrown in 1933. It is the symbol of an era when Cuba was formally independent but under strong American tutelage.
Inside, under the dome, set in the floor, there is a replica of a diamond: it marks kilometer zero of Cuba's…
8
The Assault on the Palace
You are in front of the Museum of the Revolution. Look at the eclectic-style palace with its dome, and in front a Soviet tank and the remains of aircraft. This building was Cuba's Presidential Palace until 1959.
On 13 March 1957 a group of students from the Revolutionary Directorate stormed this palace to kill Batista. They shot their way in through the main door and climbed up to his office.
Batista was not there: he had taken refuge on the floor above, by a private staircase. The attack failed. Dozens of attackers and guards died. The student leader José Antonio Echeverría, who had seized …
9
The American Neighbor
You are in front of the Hotel Ambos Mundos, on the corner of Obispo street. Look at the five-story pink building, and the pedestrian street full of people, musicians, vendors and shops.
In the 1930s the American writer Ernest Hemingway lived here, in room 511, when he came to fish in the Gulf Stream. Later he bought a farm on the outskirts of Havana and lived in Cuba for some twenty years. On the island he wrote The Old Man and the Sea.
A few blocks away is El Floridita bar, where he drank daiquiris, and the Bodeguita del Medio, where they say he drank mojitos. Today both places live off his…
10
The Ceiba of the Founding
You are in the Plaza de Armas, the oldest square in Havana. Look at the central garden with the statue of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, the secondhand book stalls, the great stone palace of the captains general and, in a corner, a small neoclassical temple with an enormous tree in front of it.
That tree is a ceiba. Tradition says that beneath a ceiba on this spot the city's first Mass was celebrated, in 1519. The little temple, El Templete, was built in 1828 to commemorate it. Every 16 November Havana's residents walk three times around the tree in silence and make a wish.
The palace of the cap…
11
The City That Falls and Rises
You are in the Plaza Vieja. Look at the colonial buildings painted in colors, the iron balconies, the half-moon stained-glass panes above the windows, the marble fountain in the middle. It looks like a postcard, and it is.
But a few decades ago this square was in ruins. In the 1950s an underground car park was built beneath it, wrecking it. After the Revolution, with no money to maintain the buildings, many of them fell down.
In 1982 UNESCO declared Old Havana a World Heritage Site. The city historian, Eusebio Leal, achieved something unusual in Cuba: his restoration office was allowed to ru…
12
The Nine O'Clock Cannon
You are at the fortress of San Carlos de La Cabaña. Look at the stone walls on the hill, the cannons pointing out to sea and, across the bay, all of Old Havana lighting up as evening falls.
The Spaniards built it after 1762, when the British took Havana from this very hill and occupied it for almost a year. To get it back, Spain had to hand over Florida. This fortress, one of the largest in the Americas, was meant to make sure it never happened again.
On 3 January 1959, days after Batista fled, Che Guevara set up his headquarters here. And in this fortress the revolutionary tribunals sat, tr…
How long does the "Havana: The Revolution, Castro, Che and What Came After" audio tour take?
It has about 23 minutes of audio across 12 stops and a 7 km walking route (~1 h 45 min on foot). Plan roughly 2 h 15 min in total, or split it up: you can pause and resume anytime.
Where does the tour start?
At stop 1, "Ever Onward to Victory" (coordinates 23.1228, -82.3855). The app guides you from stop to stop with a map.
Is it free?
Trevurs is a free app for iOS and Android. There is also an optional Premium version, from USD 1.99, with unlimited offline downloads, access to every tour and no ads. It also helps keep an independent app alive.
Why use an audio tour instead of a guided group tour?
No group to keep up with and no guide to wait for. Start at any time of day, on your own schedule. Go at your own pace: pause, rewind or skip any stop. No need to commit 2 or 3 hours to a single tour: do one stop or the whole route. Works offline once downloaded.
What languages is this audio guide available in?
This tour is available in Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, Italian. Switch languages anytime from inside the app.
Do I need wifi to listen to this tour?
No. Download the tour over wifi before you go, then listen without any data connection.
How do I access this tour?
Download Trevurs on iPhone (App Store) or Android (Google Play), then open Havana and pick "Havana: The Revolution, Castro, Che and What Came After". No account required to start.
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No wifi needed · Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, Italian
