Destination: Cuba
LONELY PLANET'S OFFICIAL ITINERARY INFORMATION
Itinerary: The musical tour
Untitled Document
TWO WEEKS TO ONE MONTH
Cuban music is famous the world over, but to break free of the Buena Vista Social Club ditties that have become the staple diet in Cuban restaurants you have to wander off the beaten track. This compact itinerary details some of Cuba’s eclectic music venues.
Ease in gently at Habana’s Iglesia de San Francisco de Asís, where refined classical music echoes eerily through the cloisters of a converted 18th-century church. Next shimmy a couple of blocks west to Mesón de la Flota, where rasping vocals and furious flamenco invites listeners to discover the elusive spirit of what aficionados call duende (a term used in flamenco to describe the ultimate climax to the music). For something more authentically Cuban, visit Habana’s Casa de la Música in El Centro, or forge your way west to venerable Viñales, home of the Guajira (a type of flamenco) and location of the spanking new Centro Cultural Polo Montañez. In unsung Matanzas, live rumba performances reverberate in Plaza de la Vigía while, an hour or two further on, in Santa Clara’s Club Mejunje loose rhythms and heavy bass mix in one of Cuba’s most vibrant and underrated cultural institutions. Trinidad has trova (traditional poetic singing) and son (Cuba’s popular music) and a lot more besides in Palanque de los Congos Reales, while the long journey east to Santiago’s spit and sawdust Casa de las Tradiciones is a musical homecoming, akin to sailing down the Mississippi to New Orleans. With the hangover starting to bite, tie in Haitian drums and voodoo rhythms in Guantánamo’s Tumba Francesa Pompadour before heading over the Sierra Puril Mountains for the grand finale: a frenetic all-out Cuban knees-up at the amiable Casa de la Trova in Baracoa.
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