The city of Matanzas has a long history of poetry and dance. Enjoy its culture in the form of theater and dance and see its fascinating bridges.
Watch locals performing an authentic Cuban dance, danzón, at the Museo Histórico Provincial. This dance style includes a built-in time to stop and flirt. Sign up for lessons to learn how to dance the rumba or danzón in the city where they originated. The city hosts the Festival del Bailador Rumbero with rumba performances over 10 days in October.
See the 19th-century Sauto Theater, an impressive neoclassical building, now a national monument. The lobby inside has marble statues of Greek goddesses. Watch a performance of the national ballet or folk dance.
The Museo Farmacéutico is another of the city’s national monuments, originally an apothecary and now a fascinating Pharmacy Museum. See the science of medications in the containers and instruments used by druggists in the 1800s.
Matanzas takes pride in its many bridges crossing the city’s three rivers. Near the mouth of the San Juan River, the Rotating Bridge was installed to make a 90-degree swing, allowing boats to pass through the channel. See the Bacunayagua Bridge, the tallest in Cuba, with a 370-foot (112-meter) arch spanning a river gorge and dense vegetation in the Yumuri Valley.
Bring the family to the Bellamar Caves between Matanzas and Varadero. Take a tour of the stalagmites, underground stream and sparkling crystals in these caves that may be 300,000 years old.
Matanzas is about 60 miles (100 kilometers) east of Havana. Travel to Matanzas from Havana by rail in 1.5 hours or ride on the slower but historic Hershey Train that once carried sugar from this productive region to the capital. Alternatively, fly to Juan Gualberto Gómez International Airport. Make a side trip from Matanzas to relax on the 12-mile-long (20-kilometer) powdery sand beach of nearby Varadero.
