Santiago de Cuba City

Santiago de Cuba City Attractions - Santiago de Cuba - Other Cities and Attractions

Santiago is the second inhabited city in the country. It is hot, hilly and exhausting but at the same time seductively languid. Built on a sequence of hills overlooking a large bay with the Sierra Maestra in the background, it is certainly one of Cuba's most picturesque cities. Its colourful streets sweep up and down steep hills, making walking through the city, although pleasant, a little tiring if done in long stretches.

Yet Santiago has a singular vibrancy, its predominantly mulatto people, a mix of Spanish, French from Haiti and huge numbers of African slaves, are persistently friendly.

Santiago de Cuba has many things of which to be proud. For example, it is the cradle of nearly all the music genres of Cuba, a country in which music expresses its soul and essence. Santiago was the city where were born the son and bolero, 2 important gender of the Cuban music. It is one of the happiest cities in the island, where the most popular Carnivals in the country take place in July.

However it is the people, who are most significant in this city. These joyous, proverbially hospitable people are self-willed, are capable of carrying out the greatest feats and embody great virtues. They are proud to live in the only city in Cuba which has been officially declared to be heroic a title bestowed on it in recognation of the extraordinary contributions that its sons and daughters made to Cuba’s War of Independence.

It was the residence of the Spanish governor until the middle of the 16th century, when he was transfered to Havana. Its port was one of the most important points of arrive emigrations from the old continent. In its bay was surrendered the Spanish ship float in 1898 by the northamerican float and this fact marked the exit of Spain from the island to began a United States domination.

The city has buildings in wide architectural styles and visitors are always given a warm welcome. The water at its beaches remains at a pleasant temperature all year round and the ocean bed hosts a fascinating world of marine flora and fauna. Moreover, the scenery in the Sierra Maestra Mountains is truly impressive. In addition to all this, Santiago de Cuba contains some places that are unique in Cuba.

2 of them are the fortress of San Pedro de la Roca del Morro and the Ruins of French coffee plantations in the mountains east of the city both of which UNESCO has declared to be part of world cultural heritage.

Other attractions include Troubadour’s House; the Rum Museum; Santa Ifigenia Cemetery, where Jose Marti, Cuba’s national hero, is buried; Céspedes Park, which is without a doubt, the heart of the city and the Basilica of El Cobre Sanctuary of our Lady of Charity, the patron saint of Cuba, whom Pope John Paul II crowned during his visit to Cuba in January 1998.

You really haven’t seen Santiago de Cuba if you haven’t been to Tivoli, a neighborhood of French-Haitian origins where the quadrille evolved into the danzon, whose popularity then swept all over the world; the San Juan Hill Historic-Military Park, scene of the last battles in the Spanish-Cuban-American War of 1898; and the former Moncada Garrison, which the young Fidel Castro and his comrades attacked on July 26, 1953, as the first action in the Revolution that brought Cuba complete independence on January 1, 1959.

The peaceful Cayo Granma (Key Granma), in the middle of the bay, is another attraction that has earned the preference of those who frequently visit a city that has become an important commercial venue in the region. The city organizes every year a meeting of business men and the EXPOCARIBE trade fair, a meeting followed by the Fiesta del Fuego (Party of Fire), where the treasures of the Caribbean culture are shown in their splendor.