Santiago de Cuba

To know Santiago Cuba, and above all its happy inhabitants, there are two excellent places to go since the very arrival. First to La Plaza Dolores, tiny but lively parks where people go to have a chat amidst fresh trees that surround the statue of Francisco Vicente Aguilera. Secondly to Cespedes Park considered the first center of social life in the city since it was a former Plaza of Arms, surrounded by significant buildings as the Diego Velasquez's house, the Municipal Government, the Metropolitan Cathedral and the hotel Casa Granda. Due to its geographical location, and its human roots, it has rightly been called the most Caribbean of the Cuban cities. Whatever the history is, the truth is that getting to the second most important city in Cuba produces the sensation that you are in an unrepeatable place, not only for the city itself, that is of a exquisite grace but also because of its people, who are real examples of hospitability. On either way, the visitor will find interesting sites like the Bacardi Museum, the Troubadour House, or Velasquez's Balcony, Heredia Theater, Tropicana Santiago Cabaret, the French coffee plantation, La Isabelica in the Gran Piedra and Santa Efigenia Cemetery. For the sea lovers there are diving centers. The diving area in the most Caribbean Cuban province is 150 km long very near the coast, with remarkable heterogeneity and a great amount of spots. Since the end of the 19 th century there are some ships sunken in the marine bottoms of Santiago They belonged to the Spanish Cervera's fleet, defeated on July 3rd, 1898 by the powerful US Army. In La Sierra Maestra we can find Baconao Park, the Turquino Peak and La Gran Piedra, emblematic places in Santiago's geography and history that offer the visitor the unique opportunity for the practice of trailing and climbing. The city is the usual site for the Festival of Caribbean Culture, the bolero, the son, and the artistic sensibility of the birthplace of the traditional ballad song is so strong that Santiago de Cuba has become the best Cuban stage to welcome cultural events and it has deserved to be called The Cultural Capital of the Caribbean.