Views from Matanzas Cuba:
The city of Matanzas was founded in 1693 as San Severino y San Carlos. It was also known as Cuba's Athens or America's Venice, because of its rivers, bridges and canals
Because of its many overpasses, Matanzas was also called the "city of bridges", among which the old La Concordia bridge, known today as Lacret, or the Calixto García bridge, just to mention some, stand out.
In Matanzas a popular Cuban rhythm was born: the Danzón.
Places of interest:
the cave of Bellamar: one of the Caribbean’s largest and most beautiful underground formations. Two kilometres of underground passages are covered in peculiar stalagmites, stalactites and calcite crystals
the ruins of the Triunvirato sugar mill
- and the Canímar woods on the outskirts of Matanzas. the woods are best seen from the river. At the mouth of the river is a small colonial castle (El Morrillo) where a the bodies of two revolutionaries rest in a mausoleum. The castle also has an archaeological museum with ecological displays.
the Canímar River
Vigía Square, site of the original town, has the Junco Palace Historical Museum, the 19th century Sauto Theatre and an exhibition of ancient fire-fighting equipment in the former military headquarters.
Le Triolet French pharmacy, built in 1882, is still stocked with ancient drugs, utensils and porcelain medicine flasks, all preserved under glass on the store’s original shelves of hand-finished Cuban wood.
Palmar de Junco Stadium, where the first official baseball game was held in Cuba.
Museum "Playa Girón"
This museum is devoted to the Cuban victory against the Bay of Pigs' mercenary invasion financed by the United States' government on April 1961. By several means, the most important facts, documents, testimonies, photos, occupied weapons, and other objects related to the invasion are exhibited there.
Address: Playa Girón, Ciénaga de Zapata
Museum to the Struggle of Ideas
It was inaugurated by Cuban President Fidel Castro in the Cardenas municipality, place of residence of the boy Elián González, who was subjected to a kidnap attempt by the far-right-wing Cuban mafia at Miami. The attempt was frustrated owing to the worldwide reaction in favor of the father's request for the child. From that moment on, the so-called "struggle of ideas" began to take place on the island and its first steps are displayed in the museum.
Address: Avenida José Martí and Maceo, Cárdenas.
Pharmaceutical Museum
The museum was inaugurated in 1964 in the former Arms Square of Matanzas, in the same place where the so-called French drugstore was located in 1882. The museum exhibits collections of flasks of polychromatic porcelain, a prizewinner dispensary table (bronze medal in the Paris Exposition of 1900), together with implements used for the production of medicines.
Address: Milanés # 4951 between Santa Teresa and Ayuntamiento
Museum "Oscar María de Rojas"
It treasures the history of Cardenas, rightfully named "Flag City" due to the fact that it was the place where the national flag was displayed for the first time in 1850. Its attractions are complemented by collections devoted to natural sciences, weapons, arts, and other topics related to a territory where infinity of relevant facts took place.
Address: Calzada # 4, Cárdenas, Matanzas
