Trinidad

Trinidad is a sugar fortune that stopped its clocks around 1850 and never restarted them: the third town the Spaniards founded in Cuba, in 1514, grew rich on the mills of the Valle de los Ingenios, built palaces around its Plaza Mayor in yellow, blue and rose, paved its streets with round cobbles called chinas pelonas — and then the sugar moved west, the railway passed it by, and the town was left too poor to modernize and too proud to fall down. UNESCO listed it with its valley in 1988. It is the most complete colonial townscape in the Caribbean, and it is inhabited, not curated.

The traveller walks the Plaza Mayor and climbs the tower of the Palacio Cantero for the view of tiled roofs against the Escambray; visits the Museo Romántico's period rooms; sits, every night, on the steps beside the Casa de la Música, where a band plays and the whole town dances until the mojitos run out; takes a taxi or the old train into the Valle de los Ingenios and climbs the Manaca Iznaga tower, from which the overseers watched the enslaved cutters; swims at Playa Ancón; and, with a day more, goes up into Topes de Collantes for the coffee, the waterfalls and the cool.

The Guide's honesty: sleep in a casa particular — the hosts here are the country's best guides and cooks —; bring cash and patience, because cards fail and queues form, and the currency situation confuses on purpose, so ask your host, not the street; power cuts and shortages are part of the present, met with grace by people who deserve better; the cobbles are charming and ankle-turning, so wear real shoes; and Trinidad is a living town of sixty thousand, not a set — curiosity yes, spectacle no.