From Old Havana to Santiago de Cuba, Old Cuba offers an inimate look at historic architeture - the houses, apartaments, monuments, charming public space, centuries old church - of this stories country. Located just south of Tropic of Cancer, in close proximity to the Florida and Yucatan peninsula, Cuba dominates the entrance to the Gulf of Mexico. It is the navel of the Americas, fixed between the great continents to the north and to the south, and has long served as bridge between Old World and New. First visited by Cristopher Columbus in 1492, its history of interaction with Old World of Europe is among the longest in the Americas, and its architecture bears testament to this, being home to some of the most ancient cities and towns in the western hemisphere. As a result, Cuba, once know as the "Pearl of Antilles", stands now as a treasure chest of alluring historic architecture - seasoned by European precedents mixed with colonial and Carribbean spice - and boasts an extraordinary number of UNESCO Cultural Heritage sites, from the historic center of Old Havana with its original city walls and the Castillo de la Real Fuerza - the oldest extant colonial fortress in the Americas - to the sixteenth-century city of Trinidad, within the central Cuban province of Sancti Spìritus, recognized by historians and scholars as a triumph of historic preservation and whose maze pastel mansions and churches forms one of the best collections of colonial architecture to be found anywhere. The book includes the historic centers of Camaguey, Trinidad, Cienfuegos, Old Havana, and the village of Vinales, all designated UNESCO Cultural Heritage sites; as such, they will be of particular interest to both history buffs, armchair travellers, and archtecture aficionados.
