Cuba Guide
Havana
Necrópolis de Colón
Address: Five blocks northwest from Plaza de la Revolución along Paseo,then turn left at the Calle Zapata junction
Opening time: Daily 8am–5pm
Price: $1CUC
The Necrópolis de Colón is one of the largest cemeteries in the Americas. With moribund foresight the necropolis was designed in 1868 to have space for well over a hundred years' worth of corpses, and its neatly numbered "streets", lined with grandiose tombstones and mausoleums and shaded by large trees, stretch out over five square kilometres. A tranquil refuge from the noise of the city, it is a fascinating place to visit – you can spend hours here seeking out the graves of the famous, including the parents of José Martí (he is buried in Santiago) and the celebrated novelist Alejo Carpentier.In the southern half of the cemetery, marked by large plots of as yet unused land, veterans of the Revolution, including luminary figures Celia Sánchez, Fidel Castro's companion, and poet Nicolás Guillén, lie in an extensive and faintly austere pantheon house just off the main avenue. A little way behind this, those who accompanied Fidel Castro on the yacht Granma and were slain in the first revolutionary battle at Alegría de Pío repose in slightly more ornate style.