Palacio del Segundo Cabo
Baroque colonial palace whose column bases hide tiny black volcanic stones nobody has ever explained.
The Palacio del Segundo Cabo guide, set on Havana's Plaza de Armas, opens with a small mystery: eight limestone columns on the porch, each ringed with tiny black volcanic stones that have nothing to do with the pale local stone around them. It traces the palace back to 1772, when military engineer Antonio Fernandez de Trebejos y Zaldivar raised it as Spain's colonial post office, and lays out the competing explanations people have offered for the stones, from leftover paving cobbles to Freemasonry to Afro-Cuban belief. Count the collars for yourself at the arcade before you move on to the building's later lives as customs house, vice-regal residence and Senate.
Audio guides are written and narrated by AI.