Havana for The Romantics: a Friday-to-Monday weekend

Sit on the lawn above the 1933 gun battery with a mojito and watch the Malecón curve away toward the Morro as the light goes orange.

Eight kilometres of seawall where the whole city comes to kiss, fish, and argue as the spray comes over the parapet; sit on the wall, not the pavement.

Climb the ruined marble staircase where Fresa y Chocolate was filmed to a paladar of candles, cracked frescoes and lamb in coffee; the roof bar is for after.

Lezama Lima called the cathedral music turned to stone; the square is at its emptiest before the lunch tables go out, so take the café chairs on the shady side.

The cramped rooms where Paradiso was written, the books stacked two deep and the cane chairs facing the street; the guide will read a line if asked.

A paladar in a faded mansion with mismatched chandeliers, a terrace among the palms and a duck that changes by the day; ask for the terrace.

You look in through the windows: the typewriter on the bookcase, the unmoved bottles, the Pilar propped in the garden under a shed, and the pool she swam in.

A Sunday matinee of the Ballet Nacional in the 1915 Galician centre, or just the guided walk up its marble stairs if the box office has nothing.

Rose petals on the stairs, a violinist on the balcony and a lobster that justifies the walk through the dark colonial streets; this is the splurge.

A deconsecrated basilica of bare stone and tombs underfoot, now used for concerts, quiet at opening; climb the bell tower for the harbour.

Sugar baron Julio Lobo's obsession, a Florentine palace of Napoleon's hat, death mask and letters, left behind in 1960 when he took the plane.

Sourdough, proper coffee and a tortilla on a tiled floor, the farewell meal of a city that rarely does breakfast well.