5 Best Sights in Santa Clara, Central Cuba

No matter what your politics, a visit to Santa Clara's most famous attraction is a must if you wish to understand modern Cuba's complex history. A massive bronze sculpture of iconic revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara looms over a site containing his tomb and a museum dedicated to his life. Exhibits under the statue—the entrance is around the back—chronicle Che's eventful life, from his happy childhood in Argentina, to his life-changing 1950's journey through South America chronicled in his own journals and the 2004 film The Motorcycle Diaries, to his 1967 assassination in Bolivia. Exhibits here primarily concentrate on his involvement in the Cuban Revolution. The cave-like mausoleum next door holds the remains of Che and 16 others who fought and died with him in the mountains of Bolivia—they weren't discovered and identified by forensic anthropologists until 1997, and the remains didn't arrive in Cuba until 1998.

This is hallowed ground to the lines of Cubans who file through, and proper hushed decorum is required.

Photography is permitted outside the complex but not inside.

The oldest building on Parque Vidal is a former home built in 1810 that's now open to the public as a museum. The house itself is half the attraction, with its marble floors, fluted columns, and hand-painted tiles. Its rooms hold an array of antiques—including crystal, china, statues, and furniture—that date from several centuries.

Most of the museums and monuments surround Santa Clara's central plaza. The streets that border it are closed to traffic, and locals gather here evenings and weekends, when concerts are often held in the kiosk or on the street in front of the Casa de la Cultura. On the park's northeast end stands the stately Palacio Provincial, built in 1912 to house the provincial government but now the city's library. Across the park from the library is the Palacio Municipal, or town hall, a structure dating from 1922. The Neoclassical building next to the Palacio Municipal was originally an elite social club but is now a government cultural center, the Casa de la Cultura; climb its marble staircase to the old ballroom, which is still lovely despite decades of neglect.

On the northwest corner of Parque Vidal stands Santa Clara's principal theater, simple and linear on the outside, ornate and frescoed on the inside. The structure dates from 1885—tenor Enrico Caruso was among the early luminaries who performed here—and underwent a thorough restoration in 2009. Caridad means "charity" in Spanish, and proceeds in those early days went to fund projects for the poor. On the opposite side of the park is a statue of Marta Abreu, a 19th-century philanthropist who financed the theater's construction.

On the north side of Santa Clara, just across the Río Cubanicay, is the armored military train that was carrying soldiers and weapons that was derailed by Che Guevara and a group of rebels on the morning of December 28, 1958—a decisive moment in the Cuban Revolution. Guevara's troops went on to take the city, cutting Havana off from the eastern half of the country, which prompted dictator Fulgencio Batista's flight from Cuba and Castro's victory—all in a matter of days. Several train cars, some containing displays, lie in the grass next to the tracks in memory of that battle; the bulldozer used to destroy the tracks stands on a nearby cement slab.