Honeymoon

Hi there,

My boyfriend and I intend to get married somewhere in the next two years and we've agreed we should spend our honeymoon in Cuba. But where to go? The keywords are: sun, beach, cultural activities, peace and quiet for a while, good food, romantic, and just relaxation.

Who can help us making our plan? Thanks!

Nelleke

Trinidad will be perfect. it has beaches, sun, music, rum, etc etc etc

Villa de las Brujas, on a key near Key Santa Maria. Charming cabins for $80/nnight, a beach, very quiet, good restaurant, and near the super expensive resort on Santa Maria, which one could crash occasionally pretending to be guests there. Santa Maria is a key on the north side of Cuba. The other recommendation would be Maria la Gorda, on the western end of Cuba.

PS: You would have to rent a car for these two locations.

Many honeymooners to Cuba go to Varadero and stay in an all-inclusive hotel on that beautiful beach. It offers the first two things on your list (sun and beach), and relaxation, if your idea of relaxation is hanging on the beach or at the pool within easy reach of the swim-up bar, and venturing out on tours to Havana, a sailing trip, or whatever, arranged by your hotel--all this in the company of other foreigners. Culturally speaking, what you will get in Varadero, though, is resort culture, not Cuban culture.

Alternatively, you might book into an all-inclusive in Havana where you are within easy taxi distance of the city, to experience Cuban URBAN culture (architecture, museums, music, dance, etc). Some hotels in Havana are waterfront but not exactly beachfront; for that you'd need to go to Santa Maria, about 10 km east. But still, close enough to do mornings on the beach and taxi back and forth to the city at night for entertainment--and good food at good restaurants. (There are not all that many, by the way--and none I know of in Varadero. You might want to go back a few days and find the posts that lists some of the best restaurants in Havana, because if you don't know where they are, you could easily go there and return home with the notion that there aren't any good ones.)

If I were looking for a lovely isolated beach with a private apartment overlooking said lovely beach, I would agree that Villa de las Brujas is one of the most charming, but there's nothing there except the beach, and only the villa restaurant to eat. And as Trap mentioned, you'd need a rental car to get there, and a rental car is going to add at least 50 CUC per day to your trip.

I personally would go with Poster #1 in recommending Trinidad, which does in fact have all of the things you have listed. To me it's a bit like a mini-Havana, in that it has lovely colonial architecture, nice parks, some small museums, an excellent street craft market, music venues, and a very nice beach nearby just 10 km away. Plus mountains where you can go for hikes in the cloud forest and down to waterfalls, just 20 km away. You can stay either in town in a licenced casa, or at an all-inclusive hotel out on the beach. And you wouldn't need a rental car to get to Trinidad, as you can easily get there by Viazul bus from Havana in just five hours. Once there, taxis are easy and relatively inexpensive for getting back and forth to the beach or the mountains. Or you can rent a bike from a local kid for getting to-from the beach, since it's a flat and easy ride.

Trinidad is heavily touristed, but the difference between it and Varadero is that in Trinidad it's easy to mix with the locals, whom you will encounter in most of the the same parks, discos, beaches, music venues, and streets where you are hanging out. In Varadero you'd be unlikely to meet any Cubans who aren't part of the hospitality industry.