Trinidad de Cuba is a picturesque town on the Caribbean coast of central Cuba.
Trinidad de Cuba – In Another Minute (Week 313)
Since 1988, the entire town of Trinidad de Cuba has been a UNESCO World Heritage site.
It’s only a 15-minute Classic Car Taxi ride away from the beach Playa
Ancón, where you can swim, snorkel, fish and sip cocktails on the beach
to your heart’s delight. With that combination, Trinidad de Cuba and
Playa Ancón were Scott’s and my natural choice as the “other place
besides Havana” to visit during our first trip to Cuba.
Trinidad de Cuba was one of the original seven villages of Cuba, established by Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar
in 1514. Its boom happened during the height of the local sugar
industry in the early to mid 1800s. During this time, most of the
beautiful colonial residences and churches were built along the
cobblestone streets. These buildings are the main reason Trinidad is
considered an outdoor museum, especially around Plaza Mayor.
But
I’m sure I’m not the only one who felt more drawn to the colorful side
streets where neighbors, school children, dogs and horses follow their
everyday life without (hopefully) too much disturbance from all the
tourists flocking to the more official attractions. I’m grateful to the Lonely Planet Cuba book, which offered a map with some of the more photogenic side streets away from the Plaza.
Because
we tried to catch the Trinidad Bus that is supposed to connect Trinidad
with Playa Ancón, Parque el Cubano and La Boca for only 4 CUC a day, I
didn’t get to see everything and didn’t stick around for a night at the
Casa Musica. However, that bus didn’t show up anyway. Probably because
it doesn’t exist and is just a Lonely Planet myth. At least, I never got
to see it – despite waiting for it on three different occasions for an
hour each.
We did however enjoy a few Cristal beers Ruinas del Teatro Brunet (in the video) and Bodeguita Fando Brothers. Mmm cerveza frio!
To
make a video only 1 minute long and for it not to be cut too fast, I
could only include very few images of what I shot in Trinidad de Cuba.
There may be a longer version of this video in the future – that will be
up to my supporters’ votes on Patreon. If you would like to vote on
upcoming videos and receive exclusive content, please become a supporter
of this series on Patreon.com/LuciWest.
My original plan was to also visit the Valle de los Ingenios
with its abandoned sugar refineries. But then I figured out that with
the limited time I had, I would only get to see the restored plantation
homes (full-on tourist attractions) and not be able to freely roam the
area to seek out truly abandoned buildings. So I opted for an
exploration of the fishing village La Boca instead. I will share that
video in the future… And I sincerely hope, I’ll get to visit Cuba
again to see even more…
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| Trinidad de Cuba Cuba |
The song in the video is “El Perro Loco” by Bruno Bassi of Los Hermanos, which I discovered via the royalty-free music website GoSoundtrack.com. Their collection is available via a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
Later this week, I will publish photos of Trinidad de Cuba here on my blog and on Flickr. Patreon supporters will get a first look…