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Museo de Historia Natural
Realistically, this is a dusty heap of stuffed animals well past their sell-by date and crying out for some government investment. Its worth visiting only if you are passing on your way to Finca El Abra. There used to be a planetarium here, but questions about reopening were invar
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Cayo Piedras del Norte
Five kilometers north of Playa las Calaveras (one hour by boat), Cayo Piedras del Norte has been made into a marine park through the deliberate sinking of an assortment of vessels and aircraft in 15m to 30m of water during the late 1990s. Scuttled for the benefit of divers and glas
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Castillo de Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles de Jagua
Predating the city of Cienfuegos by nearly a century, the Castillo de Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles de Jagua, to the west of the mouth of Bahía de Cienfuegos, was designed by José Tontete in 1738 and completed in 1745. At the time it was the third most important fortress in Cuba, a
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Museo de Simón Bolívar
A diminutive museum dedicated to Latin America’s great liberator, who remains a perennial hero to most Cubans. Downstairs there are panels containing text in English, French and Spanish that describe Bolívar’s life and his many accomplishments. Upstairs there’s a reproduction of hi
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El Jardín Botanico de las Hermanas Caridad y Carmen Miranda
Just opposite the Servi-Cupet gas station as Cisneros swings north out of town, youll spot an outlandish, vine-choked gate beckoning you in. This is the entrance to a sprawling garden, work on which began in 1918. Cascades of orchids bloom alongside plastic doll heads, thickets of
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Castillo de San Salvador de la Punta
One in a quartet of forts defending Havana harbor, La Punta was designed by the Italian military engineer Giovanni Bautista Antonelli and built between 1589 and 1600. During the colonial era a chain was stretched 250m to the castle of El Morro every night to close the harbor mouth
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Iglesia de San José
Holguín’s youngest park is also its shadiest. Named for ‘Father of the Motherland, ’ Carlos Manuel de Céspedes – his statue stands center-stage next to a monument honoring the heroes of the War of Independence – the cobbled central square is dominated by the Iglesia de San José wit
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Casa Natal de José María Heredia y Heredia
A miniscule museum illustrating the life of one of Cubas greatest Romantic poets and the man after whom the street is named, José María Heredia y Heredia (1803–39). Heredias most notable work, Ode to Niagara, is inscribed outside; it attempts to parallel the beauty of Canadas Niaga
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Museo Municipal
The Fuerte Matachín (1802) at the southern entrance to town, now houses the Museo Municipal . Though small, this museum showcases an engaging chronology of Cuba’s oldest settlement including polymita snail shells, the story of Che Guevara and the chocolate factory, and exhibits rel
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Finca Duaba
Five kilometers out of Baracoa on the road to Moa and then 1km inland, Finca Duaba offers a fleeting taste of the Baracoan countryside. Its a verdant farm surrounded with profuse tropical plants and embellished with a short cacao (cocoa) trail that explains the history and characte
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Botanic Garden
The 94-hectare botanic garden , near the Pepito Tey sugar mill, 17km east of Cienfuegos, is one of Cuba’s biggest gardens. It houses 2000 species of plants, including 23 types of bamboo, 65 of fig and 280 different palms. The botanic garden was founded in 1901 by US sugar baron Edw
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Memorial Vicente García
A colonial-era structure near the eponymous park that commemorates Las Tunas great War of Independence hero who captured the town from the Spanish in 1876, and torched it 21 years later when the colonizers sought to reclaim it. The building was once Garcías house, but only a small
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Playa los Bajos
Los Bajos, to the east of Gibara, is accessible by a local lancha (ferry; CUC$1 each way) that leaves at least twice daily from the fishing pier on La Enramada, the waterfront road leading out of town. These boats cross the Bahía de Gibara to Playa los Bajos , from where its 3km ea
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Edificio Bacardí
Finished in 1929, the magnificent Edificio Bacardí is a triumph of art deco architecture with a whole host of lavish finishings that somehow manage to make kitsch look cool. Hemmed in by other buildings, its hard to get a full kaleidoscopic view of the structure from street level,
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Museo Provincial Abel Santamaría
Not actually a memorial to Señor Santamaría (Fidels right-hand man at Moncada), but rather a small provincial museum quartered in former military barracks where Batistas troops surrendered to Che Guevara on January 1, 1959. Main displays are on natural history and on Cuban women th
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Casa Natal de Calixto García
To learn more about the militaristic deeds of Holguíns local hero, head to this house situated two blocks east of the namesake park. The hugely underestimated García – who stole the cities of Las Tunas, Holguín and Bayamo from Spanish control between 1896 and 1898 – was born here i
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Playa Maguana
Not quite the tranquil getaway it once was, Maguana is still nonetheless magical, a relatively undone Caribbean beach with a rustic food shack that is populated primarily by fun-seeking Cubans who roll up in their vintage American cars and haul their prized music boxes out of the b
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Convento & Iglesia del Carmen
Could this be the finest church in Cuba? If so, count your blessing so few know about it. The church’s craning bell-tower dominates the Centro Havana skyline and is topped by a huge statue of Nuestra Señora del Carmen, but the real prizes lie inside: rich Seville-style tiles, a gil
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Palacio de Valle
The ultimate in kitsch comes near the end of Calle 37 when, with a sharp intake of breath, youll stumble upon the Arabian Nights –like Palacio de Valle. Built in 1917 by Acisclo del Valle Blanco, a Spaniard from Asturias, the structure resembles an outrageously ornate Moroccan casb
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Museo Alejandro Humboldt
Often referred to as the second discoverer of Cuba, German scientist, Alexander von Humboldts huge Cuban legacy goes largely unnoticed by outsiders. This small museum displays a historical trajectory of his work collecting scientific and botanical data across the island in the earl
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