Hemingway in Old Havana

The Saint Francis of Assisi Plaza is defined by the central fountain of the Lions, a white marble basin crafted in Italy. The plaza served as a primary point for loading and unloading trade goods from arriving ships during the Spanish…

The Plaza de Armas is a rectangular stone square defined by the low, colonial government buildings that enclose it on all four sides. It began as the city’s original parade ground in the sixteenth century. When the Spanish governor moved…

The Hotel Ambos Mundos stands out with its salmon-pink facade and the series of slender, arched windows stacked five stories high. Ernest Hemingway checked into room five eleven in nineteen thirty-two and stayed for seven years. He…

A wooden door covered in signatures marks La Bodeguita del Medio. It began as a small grocery store owned by Angel Martinez in the nineteen forties, where he served coffee and eventually rum to local writers and artists. Martinez kept a…

The Hotel Gran Caribe Plaza occupies a corner building in Old Havana with a yellow facade and heavy, white stone columns. Before the nineteen fifties, this site hosted the offices of the Diaro de la Marina, the oldest newspaper in Cuba.…

Sloppy Joe’s Bar stands out on the corner of Zulueta and Animas with its heavy, dark mahogany bar top that stretches over fifty feet. Jose Abeal Otero bought this space in the nineteen thirties after working as a bartender in New Orleans.…

The cherry-red stools and the polished mahogany bar top define the interior of El Floridita. It started in eighteen seventeen as a grocery store called La Piña de Plata, but by the nineteen thirties, the establishment became a destination…