Track down the graves of revolutionaries at the Cementerio Santa Ifigenia in Santiago de Cuba.

With Pirates of the Caribbean boosting interest in all things piratical, Santiago de Cuba - Cuba's second-largest city - is becoming more popular.

While the Spanish were plundering Cuba (the local indigenous population is said to have been entirely wiped out in the process), pirate ships were roaming the Caribbean, looking for ways to steal some of the pickings of the empire.

The World Heritage-listed San Pedro de la Roca del Morro Castle at Santiago de Cuba (yes, Cuba is bristling with World Heritage sites) is a great place to look out over the ocean and think about Johnny Depp. If you climb to the top, you'll see a graveyard of old cannons - they're a dime a dozen around here.

Fast forward a few hundred years, and head for another historic spot, the bullet-riddled Moncada Barracks where Castro's revolution began in earnest.

At the Cementerio Santa Ifigenia, you can find the gravesite of the 19th-century poet-revolutionary Jose Marti, where there is a ceremonial changing of the guard of honour every half an hour.

In Cuba, everything is about history, and rum is no exception. At the rum museum (the Museo del Ron), find out about how rum was produced by the Bacardi family until Castro's revolution had them leaving in disgust. After that the name changed to Havana Club. Samples are, of course, freely given out.