Exploring Trinidad Cuba

[El Presidente]

 

Gorgeous city. Worthwhile couple of days if you get the chance. 

 

Trinidad was founded in 1514 as the third Spanish settlement in Cuba. It is UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1988, because of its outstanding and well preserved colonial architecture. According to UNESCO: "Trinidad is an outstanding example of a colonial city; it has maintained its historic core, featuring the highest percentage of surviving antique buildings and public squares and bringing together architectural, historic and cultural elements of great value."

 

 

[Habana Mike]

I'd love to get to Trinidad and Santiago someday. Maybe more but those two are top on the list!

[Nino]

Certainly a nice old Spanish colonial village and worth a visit.

Was there a few days 10 years ago and I loved it.

http://flyingcigar.de/travel-cigars/201103-cuba-2011-trinidad-valle-de-los-ingenios-torre-iznaga/

Was there again 2 years ago and I felt it was overcrowded with tourists, couldn't leave fast enough  ...

http://flyingcigar.de/startseite/john-bongo-back-in-cuba-and-the-worst-idea-we-had-trinidad/

[Ryan]

Stuart Fox, myself and a couple of other friends got out to Trinidad last November for a night. I had been meaning to go for years. I'd love to see Santiago, but 13 hours on an undependable train isn't very appealing and I don't know when I'll ever take a domestic flight in Cuba. Maybe someday..

We rented two rooms in a casa particular, nice spot, one of those was for our driver, the other was so we could have a shower. Well organised! The drive isn't too bad, about 4 hours.

It is a very nice city, small. But great views. The Casa de la Musica there is outdoors, just off the main square, on a long set of steps up to what I presume was some kind of municipal building. We found a nice spot at the bottom of the steps for lunch and then checked out the bars, it's shown at 16 seconds in, on the video above.  Started off at Casa de la Musica, quite far from the music, there were a few tourists around but nowhere near as busy as Habana Vieja. We found a very accommodating barman there who, when we saw that we were drinking bottles of Havana Club 7 year old, sent a messenger to the liquor store for bottles for us and charged us liquor store prices, $16. He probably wasn't supposed to do that but we tipped him well.

Then on to Casa de la Salsa. That was a very nice spot just off the main square again. Live music, good bartenders, just the right crowd and no other tourists. Reminded me a little of "Las Piedras" in Havana, sadly now gone.

After that, it was the main attraction, motorcycle taxis up the hill to the disco in the cave, which is called Disco Ayala! You'll have to get there Rob!

That was great fun, very few tourists, I've no idea where all the crowd came from. When that place closed we headed down to a little bar that was just opening up. Just a shack on the side of the road with a boombox, rum and cola. Perfect. 

Then back to the room for a shower, breakfast and back to Havana for the 500th anniversary party. Great fun. Our casa owner gave us some organic honey that came in very handy for the rest of the week. Trinidad has some very good honey. I think it's one of the things it's known for.

Our casa.

 

Lunch

 

Casa de la Musica, Trinidad

 

Sunset

Casa de la Musica

I broke the chain on the moto-taxi going up the hill to the disco.

 

Disco Ayala!

 

 

[madandana]

You guys make such a cute couple❤️

[Nino]

You had very good company ... ?

[Ryan]

20 hours ago, nino said:

You had very good company ... ?
 

Yes, good people there. Some of my closest friends, and none of them live in Ireland. There could be a connection there!