We arrived in Santa Clara at midnight by train, and walked along cobbled streets through dark alleys and across more train tracks to get to the main square. Our destination was its only hotel, a dreary-looking 168-room concrete tower block on one corner of the colonial plaza, the Hotel Santa Clara Libre.

It was too late to go looking for one of the many fabled casas particulares – private rooms in turn-of-the-century homes with high ceilings, lazy fans and big windows – so a small box room on the seventh floor of a bog-standard 1960s hotel would have to do.

Some 270km east of Havana, in the centre of the island, the university town of Santa Clara is most famous as the site of an historic battle, the last of the Cuban revolution, and the one that clinched it for Fidel Castro and saw General Batista flee Cuba. But it wasn't Fidel who fought it – instead it was Ernesto "Che" Guevara who, between 28-31 December 1958, led a ragtag band of guerrilla fighters who derailed a train full of US-backed government troops on its way from Havana. The first of the two-part movie Che, released on Friday and starring Benicio Del Toro, is based on this event and has already been well received in Cuba.

That Che won the battle of Santa Clara and became a revolutionary figurehead is well known. Spend a minute in Santa Clara and you will spot his image painted on a wall somewhere. Spend an evening at one of the bar tables in town and you'll meet someone who swears they were there, fighting shoulder to shoulder with the man himself. They'll even have the toothy grin and missing "trigger finger" to prove it. He is revered here, as he is across Cuba, and his story is magnificently told, over and over again.

Santa Clara is a pretty, liveable town and it revels in its history. A short walk from Parque Vidal are the train tracks where the battle took place. Alongside is the actual bulldozer used in the attack and the box carriages that tumbled from the rails 50 years ago.

They are parked permanently on cement plinths, on a grassy patch next to the road, carriages skewed at angles, as if frozen in time when they crashed. A bar alongside, El Crucero (The Crossing), with a cartoon of Che as a steam engine painted on its outside wall, seems to be a wry dig at the pomp of it all.

It is a mile from the centre of the town, however, where the Che legend has its epicentre. This is the Che museum and mausoleum - Museo Historico de la Revolucion and the Mausoleo Che Guevara. Killed in La Higuera, Bolivia, in 1967 and then lost for decades in an unmarked grave, Che's remains were found in Vallegrande in southern Bolivia in 1995 and only made their way to Cuba in 1997. He is buried in the mausoleum below an enormous bronze statue of himself stretching high into the sky, in front of a parade ground of Stalinist scale.

To reach the museum, you have to walk through the sapping heat and past ranks of Soviet-style concrete housing. The term "cult of personality" seems to be have been invented for this place. The statue of Che is visible from every approach, his chin thrust boldly forward, his military fatigues and rifle identifiable from afar. It looks slightly absurd - out of proportion with the small, dusty streets that surround it - yet it guards an excellent museum directly beneath it, and a mausoleum, cool and calm and protected from the outside glare.

Inside the museum are simple exhibits: bowls, medical certificates, a battered water bottle and a gun. And black-and-white photographs: Che in his uniform at the UN smoking a Cuban cigar; Che eating; playing golf; as a child; climbing Mexico's Popocatépetl at a distorted angle.

It is one large room but split neatly into two parts. Che's early life of study and medicine is there when you come in; and then halfway through you reach his pistol – the start of his revolutionary life. A qualified medical doctor, he chose to carry bullets over medical dressings in the heat of battle, and thus was born Che, the revolution's number one icon.

Cuba is a difficult place to believe anything – the longer you stay the deeper this feeling becomes – and despite the seriousness, the elegance of it all, it is impossible to know if what you are looking at really is his water bottle, his bowl, his binoculars, or if they are simply props on an artful stage. There is no room for dissent in the official Che story, and this thought niggles away at the visitor. Wouldn't it be nice, you start to think, if there was some objective historical rigour involved in this fine museum.

The mausoleum next door is small, and illuminated mainly by the light of an eternal flame, lit by Fidel Castro in October 1997. There are 38 stars at stepped intervals on the wall, one for each revolutionary who died in Bolivia. Sixteen are buried here, along with Che.

The dim light creates a tranquillity – the place is only comfortably big enough for a handful of people at a time and it is never full. Names of the dead are set in the stars which in turn are set in a brick wall, as if the revolution is made up piece by piece. Che's star is at the centre, no bigger than the rest. Again, it is a simple place, and all the more powerful for it – a contrast to the giant statue and parade ground above you.

You leave the way you entered, and pick up your bag, wallet, phone and belongings from the attendants' office outside the entrance – nothing is allowed in, including cameras. The walk back is hot and sweaty, although shade is provided by occasional plane trees. Old American cars rumble past, buses honk, and horses and carts, a common form of transport in this oil-strapped country, clatter along. For a peso – 4p – they will take you back to the main square. But the walk through Santa Clara-the-present is worthwhile, if only because it leaves you wondering where the last 50 years have gone.

• Mausoleo Ernesto Che Guevara, Avenida de los Desfiles, Santa Clara. Admission free: 8am-9pm, Tues-Sat; 8am-6pm Sun. Santa Clara is four hours by train from Havana. Che is released on 2 January 20 February.

Getting there

Virgin Atlantic flies from Gatwick to Havana from £511.80 (inc taxes) in January.

Places to stay

Hotel Santa Clara Libre. A 10-storey block with 166 uniform rooms. The only hotel in the centre of town (but not a patch on some of the better colonial casas particulares). Hosts package tours and Cuban honeymooners; a good choice at a pinch as it is on the main square. Good views from the rooftop bar. 6 Parque Vidal, Santa Clara, + 53 42 20 75 48, single/double $27CUC/$36CUC.

Casa Florida Center. Amazing colonial private home built in 1878 with huge rooms, ceilings to the sky, ornate decor, red and white checkerboard tiled floors, open air square courtyard and turn-of-the-century darkwood Spanish furniture. If full, will point travellers in the direction of neighbours' casas particulares. From $20CUC a night. Sr Angel Rodriguez, 56 Calle Maestra Nicolasa, Santa Clara, +53 42 20 81 62

Hostal Amneris y Alberto. Bright and airy casa particular a few blocks from the centre in an art-deco style yellow and turquoise painted building. Small courtyard full of plants. $20CUC a room. 60 Calle EP Morales, Santa Clara, +53 42 20 32 70. Email: contabfzas@eima.vcl.cu.

Vivian and Jose Rivero. Two rooms in a turn-of-the-century colonial house arranged around a lush courtyard and garden. Quiet terrace. $25CUC for a twin or double room. 64 Maceo, Santa Clara, +53 42 20 67 54.