Las Hadas — the Fairies — is the white, Moorish-Mediterranean fantasy resort that put Manzanillo on the international map. Its domed white towers, narrow lanes, courtyards and stairways are deliberately styled after a North African medina, all built in the 1970s on the Santiago Peninsula.
Even if you are not staying here, you can walk the public beach and the marina, take a drink at the bar with the view down the bay, and admire the architecture. The resort is showing its age in places but the look of the thing — a small white town tumbling down to a private cove — remains striking. Day-pass arrangements are sometimes available through the front desk.