Cuba

The cathedral of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Cristóbal de La Habana, dedicated to the Immaculate Conception, begun by the Jesuits in 1748 and elevated to a cathedral in 1788. Its Baroque facade of marine coral stone embedded with fossils and flanked by two asymmetrical bell towers is celebrated as one of the finest and most austere Baroque churches in the Americas, and housed the remains of Christopher Columbus from 1796 to 1898.

UNESCO World Heritage Site (Old Havana and its Fortification System, 1982)Calle Empedrado 156, giữa Mercaderes và San Ignacio, Plaza de la Catedral, La Habana Vieja

Photo: Yoeztudioz, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

The supreme national pilgrimage sanctuary of Cuba crowning Maboa Hill amid the green peaks of the Sierra Maestra beside the historic copper mines of El Cobre, enshrining the 1612 miraculous wooden image of Our Lady of Charity (La Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre) found floating on the Bay of Nipe by two indigenous Taino brothers and an enslaved African boy, inaugurated in its present three-domed yellow basilica on September 8, 1927 and housing Ernest Hemingway's 1954 Nobel Prize gold medal in its Chapel of Miracles.

National Sanctuary of Cuba, Papal Minor Basilica (decreed by Pope Paul VI on December 22, 1977), and National Monument of the Republic of Cuba (designated in 2012)Cerro de Maboa (Maboa Hill), El Cobre, 20 km northwest of Santiago de Cuba, Santiago de Cuba Province, Republic of Cuba

Photo: Mateos, Santiago de Cuba, Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

The largest synagogue in Cuba and headquarters of the coordinating House of the Cuban Jewish Community (El Patronato) in Havana's El Vedado district, designed by celebrated Cuban modernist architect Aquiles Capablanca and inaugurated on October 18, 1953 with a soaring parabolic concrete arch bearing the Ten Commandments and Menorah, housing a 700-seat main sanctuary, a daily prayer chapel, a kosher communal center, and a 13,000-volume multilingual Jewish library.

Largest Synagogue in Cuba, Headquarters of the House of the Cuban Jewish Community (Casa de la Comunidad Hebrea de Cuba), and 20th-Century Tropical Modernist Architectural Landmark of HavanaCalle I No. 259 at the corner of Calle 13, El Vedado District, Plaza de la Revolucion Municipality, Havana, Republic of Cuba

Photo: NYC2TLV, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

The Primatial Cathedral of Cuba rising on an elevated arcade terrace along the south side of Parque Cespedes in historic Santiago de Cuba, heir to the island's first bishopric transferred here by Pope Adrian VI in 1522 and burial site of conquistador Diego Velazquez de Cuellar (died 1524), built in its fourth incarnation between 1810 and 1818 as a five-aisled basilica and remodeled in 1922 by architect Carlos Segrera with twin bell towers, the winged Archangel Gabriel atop the gable, and Cuba's oldest Ecclesiastical Museum.

First and Primatial Cathedral of Cuba (Catedral Primada de Cuba, diocese established in 1522 and elevated to archdiocese in 1803), Papal Minor Basilica (1882), and National Monument of the Republic of Cuba (designated January 22, 1958)South Side of Parque Cespedes, Calle Heredia between Calle Santo Tomas and Calle San Felix, Historic Center of Santiago de Cuba, Republic of Cuba

Photo: Sangianense, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

One of the largest parish churches in Cuba presiding over the terraced gardens of Plaza Mayor at the heart of the UNESCO World Heritage town of Trinidad (inscribed 1988), constructed across the nineteenth century to replace a 17th-century church felled by the 1812 hurricane and consecrated on January 30, 1892 with a three-bay yellow Neoclassical facade, a five-aisled interior of precious Cuban mahogany and cedar, a carved Neo-Gothic wooden high altar, and the revered 1713 Spanish statue of the Lord of the True Cross (Cristo de la Vera Cruz).

Principal Religious Monument of Trinidad and the Valley de los Ingenios (UNESCO World Heritage Site inscribed in 1988, Ref. 460) and one of the largest parish churches in the Republic of CubaNortheast Side of Plaza Mayor, Calle Cristo between Calle Rosario and Calle Desengano, Historic Center of Trinidad, Sancti Spiritus Province, Republic of Cuba

Photo: Dieter Mueller, dino1948, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons