Sights in Varadero
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Artisan Market
If art and history are your thing you've come to the wrong place. Varadero's reputation as a font of cultural interaction is not exactly legendary. Nevertheless there are a few sights worth pondering over if the beach banality starts to wear a bit thin.
The Parque Central and adjacent Parque de las 8000 Taquillas host the biggest Artisan Market in town and nestled among the uva caleta (sea grape) trees it's a pretty part of the public beach.
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B
Reserva Ecológica Varahicacos
A few hundred meters beyond the cave is the entrance to Varadero's nominal green space and a wildlife reserve that's about as 'wild' as New York's Central Park. Bulldozers have been chomping away at its edges for years. There are three underwhelming trails but the highlight is the Cueva de Musalmanes with its 2500-year-old human remains.
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C
Cueva de Ambrosio
Beyond Marina Chapelín, Varadero sprawls east like a displaced North American suburb with scrubby mangroves interspersed with megahotel complexes, the odd iron crane and a delfinario. Pass all this and 500m beyond the Club Amigo Varadero on the Autopista Sur, you'll find this cave, which is an incredibly interesting sight due to some 47 pre-Columbian drawings, discovered in this 300m recess in 1961. The black-and-red drawings feature the same concentric circles seen in similar paintings on the Isla de la Juventud, perhaps a form of solar calendar. The cave was also used as a refuge by escaped slaves.
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Delfinario
The much hyped Delfinario gets mixed reviews. Dolphin shows happen here daily in a natural pool and swimming with the friendly aquatic mammals costs a steep CUC$65. You’re allowed to grab the dolphin’s fin and let it drag you around. Ride of a lifetime or cruel aqua-zoo? You decide.
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D
Museo Municipal de Varadero
Working up the beach from Hotel Acuazul Varazul, you'll see many typical wooden beach houses with elegant wraparound porches. The most attractive of the bunch, Varadero's Museo Municipal, has been turned into a balconied chalet displaying period furniture and a snapshot of the resort's history.
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Playa Las Calaveras
Playa Las Calaveras, 800m of beach promoted as 'virgin' by tourist brochures is dotted with massage shacks and drink stands.
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E
Iglesia de Santa Elvira
Just east of Parque Central is this tiny colonial-style building resembling a displaced alpine chapel.
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Parque Josone
This green oasis is more enclosed and much prettier than Parque Central. The gardens date back to 1940, taking their name from the former owners, José Fermín Iturrioz y Llaguno and his wife Onelia, who owned the Arrechabala rum distillery in nearby Cárdenas and built a neoclassical mansion here: the Retiro Josone. Expropriated after the Revolution, the mansion became a guesthouse for visiting foreign dignitaries. The park is now a public space for the enjoyment of all – you may see Cuban girls celebrate their quinciñeras (15th-birthday celebrations) here. Josone's expansive, shady grounds feature a lake with rowboats (CUC$0.50 per person per hour), atmospheric…
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Parque Central & Parque de las 8000 Taquillas
Standing together between Avs 44 and 46, these parks were once the center of the town's social life, but became neglected during the 1990s as bigger resorts sprouted up further east. Recently redeveloped, Parque de las 8000 Taquillas now boasts a brand-new shopping center beneath the ever-popular Coppelia ice-cream parlor.
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F
Mansión Xanadú
Everything east of the small stone water tower (it looks like an old Spanish fort, but was built in the 1930s), next to the Restaurant Mesón del Quijote, once belonged to the Du Pont family. Here the millionaire American entrepreneur Irenée built the three-story Mansión Xanadu, now an upscale hotel atop Varadero's 18-hole golf course, with a top-floor bar conducive to sipping sunset cocktails in.
reviewed
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