Cienfuegos was founded by the French in 1819. It is located
on a very calm bay. The seasons are identical to what we have in Florida. The
most common means of transportation is the horse and buggy, which we have seen
in all parts of Cuba. The oil refinery is located here in Cienfuegos.
The tour we did here was called Cienfuegos on Foot. However,
their ‘on foot’ tours do not require much walking. Our guide here was Diana,
and was nowhere as good as the one we have in Havana.
Here are some pictures from the drive to our first stop. The
blue and gold building is the train station.
We then went to a cigar factory. We could not take any
pictures inside. This factory was built in 1924 and employs 163 workers with
120 of them women. They individually wrap every cigar. Their quota is 120
cigars per day and they are paid more if they produce more. They work Monday
thru Friday from 7:30-4:30 with a 30 minutes break in the morning and 1 hour
for lunch. They pull out the center stem of the leaf and use it for perfumes.
Then the will classify the leaf to determine what type of cigar will be made.
Next, we visited the Tomas Terry Theater. Here are some
pictures of the area around the theater and the theater. We could not take
pictures once you went inside of the theater itself. In the ceiling of the
theater, in the mural, is a clock. It says 4 o’clock, which is the time the
theater construction was completed. There were four tiers of seats in the
theater. The fourth tier was just benches and was for the poor.
The next stop was the square. The blue building that does
not look like a church is City Hall. The cathedral was built in 1869. Inside
are twelve glass windows that represent the twelve apostles. They are in Italy
now being refurbished.
As we made our way to the last stop, we passed the Blue Palace,
Palacio Azul, which was once owned by the owner of a cigar factory. Now it is a
hotel with eight rooms. We also passed the old Yacht Club that was started in
1918 and opened in 1920 for the rich people of Cuba. Now it is a restaurant.
All of these places used to belong to individuals before the revolution and
today are owned by the government.
The Hotel Lagua, was built in the early 20th
century. The materials came from Spain. There are three towers in the hotel
each with a meaning: Love, Youth, Strength. Today is is a restaurant, wine
cellar and a cafeteria.
That is the end of our time in Cuba. It was interesting, but
I am not sure that we would want to come back.
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