3 Best Sights in Havana, Cuba

The fishing village Hemingway described in The Old Man and the Sea is modeled after this sleepy maritime hamlet where the author's wooden sportfishing craft, El Pilar, was berthed. El Torreón, the small fortress built here after the English used Cojímar as a landing point in their 1762 attack on Havana, is the site of a Hemingway bust made of brass boat propellers donated by Cojímar fishermen.

Wander around town; Gregorio Fuentes—Hemingway's skipper and pal from 1935 to 1960—once lived at Calle Pezuela 209. Gregorio provided Hemingway with a great deal of inspiration. The writer, having based the novel on the then thirtysomething Gregorio, was at a loss for a title until Gregorio shrugged and commented that, as far as he could tell, it was just about "un viejo y el mar" ("an old man and the sea").

Once a small sugar and tobacco center, Guanabacoa is inhabited primarily by the descendents of slaves who worked the fields here. Though the town, which is full of colonial treasures, is now part of sprawling Havana, its old Afro-Cuban traditions and religions have been kept alive.

Probably named for a West African Yoruba deity, this seafarers' and fishermen's enclave retains a rough vitality. Originally a camp for black slaves—especially of the Ibibio, Bantu, and Yoruba tribes—Regla's Afro-Cuban roots are strong.

The waterfront Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de Regla, the first stop as you leave the ferry, was built in 1810. It's famous as the home of La Virgen de Regla (The Black Virgin of Regla), a black Madonna who cradles a white infant. Identified with Yemayá, the Yoruban orisha of the sea, the Virgin is the patron saint of motherhood and of sailors. On September 8 both Catholic and Santería celebrations honor her. There's a procession through the streets to the wailing of dirge music. The faithful also fill the church—dressed in their finest and wearing something blue, the color of the sea and of Yemayá—waiting their turn to touch the virgin or their favorite icons and crucifixes in side chapels. At the water's edge, women standing ankle-deep in the harbor's oily waters sing or pray to Yemayá, sometimes tossing in a coin or launching offerings of flowers, oranges, or melons. A branch of the Museo Municipal de Regla, just to the right of the church, has a display of Afro-Cuban orishas. There's also a shrine to Yemayá in the entryway of a private house, two doors up at No. 15.