In the Main Square is a bust of Hatuey, the brave Indian leader who resisted early conquistadores until he was caught by the Spanish and burned at the stake. There’s also a very lively Casa de la Trova here. It is worth wandering along the Malecón, the seaside avenue, from the snug Fuerte Matachín (an early 19th-century fort that has a small but informative municipal museum inside) to the Hotel La Rusa, which is named after a legendary Russian émigrée who over the years hosted celebrities such as Che Guevara and Errol Flynn.

Around Baracoa are several dozen pre-Columbian archaeological sites related to the two major indigenous groups that once inhabited the region. It is a marvellous facility for lovers of history and archaeology, situated in a colonial ambiance on the second terrace of Seboruco, known as Paradise Heights. The area in which it is located is rich in remains of our first population. The Paradise Cave Archaeological Museum contains a copy of the Taíno tobacco idol found nearby in 1903 (the original is in Havana).

One of Baracoa's three fortresses, Fuerte Matachín, was completed in 1802. In 1868 it became a guard post of the Spanish army for the recognition and registry of all those entering and departing from the city. After the installation of the pseudo-Republic, it was used firstly as a bastion against the pirates and later was used by the Spanish as a prison. Today it houses the Museo Histórico Matachín, whose displays discuss the city's history, including its Taíno roots. There are examples of Taíno pottery, sculpture, and other artifacts; exhibits on famous citizens; and displays explaining the community's role in the wars for independence and the Revolution.

A peculiar elevation of vertical slopes and flat top located 8 km off the Baracoa city, Columbus described it in his diary notes of his first trip to Cuba in 1492. El Yunque de Baracoa, declared National Monument and symbol of the city of Baracoa, considered an ecological island that called the attention of Admiral Christopher Columbus in his first trip to the Americas, serving as an orientation feature due to its unusual characteristics (flat topped). The fauna of the Yunque is rich and diverse there are abundant woodpeckers, humming birds, jutias, lizards, reptiles. There is a natural viewpoint at 573 m, from which one can see a vast landscape of green mountains and rivers with the Bay of Baracoa as backdrop.