The Cementerio de Cristóbal Colón, opened in 1876 and covering 57 hectares in the Vedado district, is one of the most beautiful and architecturally significant cemeteries in the Americas — a planned city of the dead laid out on a grid with neoclassical tombs, Modernist mausoleums, Art Deco chapels, and Baroque funeral monuments filling every street.
The cemetery contains the remains of most of Cuba's notable figures from the 19th and 20th centuries: generals, presidents, poets, scientists, and athletes. The monuments range from simple headstones to elaborate family mausoleums designed by the best Cuban architects of their day. The main entrance on Zapata Street is itself a magnificent neoclassical gate. Allow two hours to walk the main avenues and seek out the most remarkable tombs, including those of the revolutionary veterans and the Bacardí family — who were buried here long before the revolution drove their living descendants out.