Hotels - Conde de Villanueva

About  Conde de Villanueva

The Hotel Conde de Villanueva runs a very close second to the Hotel Santa Isabel and indeed some of our clients prefer it for its quieter location. The building is the pretty little mansion of Claudio Martínez de Pinillos, Count of Villanueva, the leader of Cuban Creole society in the nineteenth century. It was restored and is now run by the Office of the City Historian of Havana, so all its profits are reinvested in the restoration of the city’s historical centre.

The Hotel Conde de Villanueva has been designed for the special enjoyment of cigar smokers - each of the rooms is named after a famous Cuban tobacco plantation, and the very best cigar shop in the city is tucked away secretly in the mezzanine floor of the hotel. Passionate aficionados can even rent their own personal humidor there, rather like a vault in a Swiss bank.

However, you don’t have to be a smoker to enjoy the colonial courtyard full of flowers and mahogany rocking chairs, and the fact that the hotel only has nine rooms causes our more discerning clients to book the whole place for themselves and their friends when they come to Havana for special parties.

The Hotel Conde de Villanueva is on the corner of Mercaderes and Lamparilla streets in Old Havana, about 2 minutes’ walk from all the most important places to visit in the historical centre.

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Calle Brasil esq. Compostela, Habana Vieja, La Habana

Farmacia Habanera Museum

A few steps towards Calle Brasil from Plaza del Cristo Square is where the 1886 Museo de la Farmacia Habanera is located. Founded by the Catalonian José Sarrá, it is a shop-museum and nowadays still functions as a pharmacy. The museum displays the history of pharmacies in Havana and their evolution in Cuba. This Pharmacy preserves its original Neo-gothic furniture with Moorish influences, and host a large collection of medicine bottles and medical tools, extracted from archeological excavations in the old city, as well as a book collection with valuable prescriptions for the study of Cuban pharmacopoeia. The museum also exhibits an elegant scale model of an old pharmacy with captivating historical explanations.

Oficios No.13, La Habana

Automobile Museum

The Museo del Automóvil (Automobile Museum) is located in an 1892 Neoclassical construction in Old Havana. This museum is divided in two exposition rooms, which share the entire collection composed by 30 promenade cars, two rigid trucks, a funeral carriage, a special vehicle, seven motorcycles, a semaphore, three fuel pumps and two didactic imitations. This museum has a very well preserved and interesting collection of old automobiles, among which are the noteworthy Thunderbird, Pontiac, and Ford T, among others. The oldest vehicle in the collection dates from 1905, and the latest one comes from 1989. Most of them are North American, although some cars were made in Italy, Spain, Germany and Great Britain. It houses automobiles related to specific people and others antiquated vehicles. An example of this is the Cadillac used by Ernesto Che Guevara when living in Havana, the 1930 Fiat from Flor Loynaz, or the 1959 Oldsmobile used by Commander Camilo Cienfuegos.

San Pedro No. 262e / sol y Santa Clara, Habana Vieja, La Habana

Rum Museum

Discover part of the Cuban culture throught the history of Havana Club, the Cuban Rum, and its elaboration stages. It is not necessary to drink alcohol to enjoy this wonderful museum, because by visiting it you’ll still be able to delve into Cuban culture. This museum offers an interesting guided tour exhibiting the complex rum-making process in old machines. This tour is available in Spanish, English, French, German and Italian. It explains the entire process, from the manufacturing white oak barrels to the rum’s fermentation and ageing process, as well as a scale-model copy of a sugar mill. Ticket price includes a tasting to finish the tour in an attractive bar, where you will be able to taste also a wide variety of typical cuban cocktails, with traditional Cuban music from the 30’s in a cozy early 20th century atmosphere. The museum also contains a shop store.

Plaza de Armas, Habana Vieja

The Templete

The Templete, a small neo-classical style construction, was built in the second half of the 18th Century. It is located in Plaza de Armas. This was the site where the first public mass was celebrated and also the site of the first town council of the nascent town of San Cristóbal de La Habana. The Templete resembles a Doric temple and houses three commemorative canvasses by the famous French painter Juan Bautista Vermey. One of the walls exhibits the plate that declares Old Havana a World Heritage Site.

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