Trinidad

Getting a taste for Cuba's food and drink revolution

In Cuba, the word ‘revolution’ usually conjures up images of bearded guerrillas puffing on cigars rather than imaginative chefs preparing platters of lobster. Yet, the most revolutionary thing about Cuba in the last four years has been the food.

Following decades of gastronomic austerity, the spark of a full-blown culinary revolution was auspiciously ignited in early 2011 when the Cuban government relaxed laws on private enterprise. At liberty to express their pent-up creativity for the first time since JFK cancelled the US sugar order, Havana’s knife-wielding chefs began crawling enthusiastically out of the woodwork. It was as if a crossbow that had been wound back for fifty years had suddenly been let go.

Brendan Sainsbury

Lonely Planet Writer

Exploring Cuba's 500-year anniversary cities

Soon after arriving in Cuba in 1511, conquistador Diego Velázquez de Cuellar set about founding seven pioneering villas (towns) in the new colony with the aim of subjugating the restless Taíno natives. Four of Velázquez’s villas – Trinidad, Sancti Spíritus, Camagüey, and Santiago de Cuba – were given major facelifts over the past couple of years to coincide with their quincentennials.

Revitalized and ready for visitors, each city offers travelers a unique opportunity to experience a bit of Cuban history.

Brendan Sainsbury

Lonely Planet Writer

Top 10 things to do in Trinidad, Cuba

The UNESCO World Heritage Site of Trinidad, Cuba, was built on the back of the 19th-century sugar and slave trade. At its zenith, in 1827, one of the 56 sugar mills in the region harvested the biggest cane haul in the world — just under a million kilos of white pressed crystals. This enormous, conspicuous wealth shaped the town and no expense was spared in fashioning the finest Spanish colonial mansions, plazas and churches, which still stand testament to the vainglory of this profiteering era.

North of town, higgledy-piggledy cobblestone streets peter out into the Escambray mountains, where nature beckons the adventurous traveller; to the south, the road leads straight to the sun loungers lined up on the baking white sands of the Caribbean. New private restaurants fuel the town's nightlife, which happily parties through to the early hours as Afro-Cuban moves, disco, salsa and son compete for an audience — and participants — in Trinidad’s cluster of busy evening haunts. It's an intoxicating mix — here’s how to get the most out of your trip to Trinidad.

Claire Boobbyer

Lonely Planet Writer