Make Santiago de Cuba your base for exploring Oriente: the eastern provinces. The city requires two days, including a visit to Parque Histórico del Morro for the nightly cañonazo (cannon-firing) ceremony. Hire a car for day trips to the Basilica del Cobre and Parque Baconao (day three), then set out for Baracoa (days four and five). En route, detour to the Zoológica Piedra outside otherwise desultory Guantánamo. Your 10-day, round-trip itinerary should also include the gorgeous beaches and pre-Columbian sites of Guardalavaca (days six and seven), plus Holguín (day eight) for its colonial plazas. Visit Fidel Castro's birthplace at nearby Sitio Histórico Birán (day nine) before heading back to Santiago.
Hostal San Basilio, Santiago de Cuba - A quaint, eight-room conversion of a colonial mansion close to the main plaza.
Hotel El Castillo, Baracoa - An erstwhile castle has metamorphosed into a fine hilltop hotel with a good restaurant and gold-star views.
Recommended Reading
After Fidel: The Inside Story of Castro's Regime and Cuba's Next Leader, Brian Latell; Cuba Classics: A Celebration of Vintage American Automobiles, Christopher P. Baker; Cuba Diaries: An American Housewife in Havana, Isadora Tattlin; Mi Moto Fidel: Motorcycling Through Castro's Cuba, Christopher P. Baker; Travelers Tales: Cuba, Tom Miller (ed.)
Learn more about the country in our feature Cuba: Then and Now...
Go back to Your First Cuba Trip...
Online Editor's Note: Sign up for our weekly e-newsletter and receive hot deals, travel news, contest notifications and info-packed features like this one - right in your inbox.
Related Content
If the Caribbean had a national sport, it might be drinking. Find out which watering holes are serving your favourite contenders and what makes them so delicious...if the barkeeps will tell you.
As Cuba slowly opens up to American tourists, now is the time to go for any traveler looking for a trip with a local touch.
A dozen Caribbean denizens and some top places to see them.
You’re in love. Big-time. And you want to show it in a suitably big way. A bottle of Asti Spumante and a heart-shaped bathtub in the Poconos won’t cut it this time—better head to Steele Point, doubtless one of the most astonishing rentable homes on earth.
A list of our favorite affordable hotels, from Mexico to Turks and Caicos.
