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 Seven
treasures of colonial architecture
Overview of Cuba - Travel Guide After Spain decided to conquer and colonize the island of Cuba, adelantado (royal governor) Don Diego Velázquez was sent to the New World. Between 1512 and 1519, he founded the first seven Cuban townships, namely Nuestra Señora de la Asuncion de Baracoa, San Salvador de Bayamo, Santiago de Cuba, Sanctisima Trinidad, Sancti Spiritus, Santa Maria del Puerto del Principe (now Camaguey), and San Cristóbal de La Habana. Today, they still preserve a great deal of their charming and dignified past. Havana and Trinidad are, without a doubt, the ones that have best maintained their historic cores, featuring the highest percentage of surviving antique buildings and public squares and bringing together architectural, historic, and cultural elements of great value. Both have been designated by UNESCO as World Heritage Jewels.
Baracoa and Santiago de Cuba
are charmingly authentic. Located by the sea and
Updated August
20, 2000
Copyright ©2000 USA CUBA TRAVEL |
Nevertheless,
the rest are not less noble in lineage and offer a vast array of architectural
and historic monuments, public squares, fortresses, and palaces.
For instance, even though the inhabitants of Bayamo burned their
city to the ground in the early days (1868) of the War of Independence
so it would not fall in enemy hands. Bayamo has nevertheless retained
part of the original parochial church and countless extremely important
historic sites, plus the local color of its traditions, typified by buggy
rides along its venerable streets. Contemporary Camaguey, once
called Puerto Principe, with an old city as large as Havana's
and many times larger than
Trinidad's, will dazzle visitors with
its peculiar small streets, its churches, squares, and mansions, as well
as with its cosy courtyards watched over by the large jar-shaped clay tinajones
used locally as rainwater collectors.
surrounded
by mountains, these cities are famous for their distinctly Carribean flavor.
Santiago's San Pedro de la Roca del Morro castle and Adelantado
Velázquez's house are definitely worth a visit. Baracoa,
Cuba's oldest city and first capital, jealously guards the first Christian
relic of the New World, the Holy Cross of Parra, kept at
Nuestra
Señora de la Asunción Catholic Church.