Cienfuegos is quite unusual, though I can’t quite put my finger on why. It is full of beautiful buildings, a clear love for the theatre and loads of public parks with the most available seating I’ve ever seen, but sadly hardly anyone using it.
We were in Cienfuegos in early December as part of a 3 week trip in Cuba, so all my notes are based around my experiences as a tourist at that time. Please do check any dates/opening times/locations etc. if you’re planning your own trip – things change! Links are to websites if I can find useful ones, or Google Maps locations if not, so you can see where they are. Please also note this post contains some affiliate links, indicated with a ‘*’ – if you click them and decide to buy something I may receive a small cut of the payment, but it won’t cost you more. Thank you!
Contents
Pictures, please!
If you’d prefer just to look through my photos for now I’ve made a gallery of the photographs in this post here, but if you’d like to read my notes you can find them all below.
Top recommendations in Cienfuegos
You can read my notes on what we got up to below, but if you are short on time here are my top recommendations on what to do in Cienfuegos, plus you can take a look at at my more general notes on Cuba, too:
Top recommendations on a map
Full notes on my time in Cienfuegos: how we spent 1.5 days in Cienfuegos
Travelling to Cienfuegos from Viñales (or Havana):
We came to Cienfuegos by Taxi Collectivo arranged through our host at Casa Leyani y Osvedy*, where we were staying in Viñales. There are two legs to that journey (read more about how Taxi Collectivos work here), Viñales to Havana and then on from there to Cienfuegos. The whole journey took about 7 hours.
First afternoon: sunset views and restaurant searches
We arrived at Hotel Palacio Barón BalbÃn* at around 3pm and it was very different from the places we’d previously stayed in on this trip. It was extremely ornate with ridiculously high ceilings (our room must have been over 20ft high!) and very spacious. It was quietly beautiful.
We headed out quickly for a walk around the area and made use of the internet in Parque José MartÃ, which is a lovely park surrounded by interesting buildings. We saw the closest we have come to a high street so far, Av 54 (El Bulevar, San Fernando), but as with everywhere there aren’t really any proper shops as we know them.
We decided to go for a stroll down the Malecón de Cienfuegos, in the late afternoon sun.
It’s quite a strange place. On one hand it looks exactly as most of us envisage Cuba -beautiful buildings in pretty colours, gorgeous cars, sea, sun etc. but on the other hand it’s deserted. I’ve never seen so many public seating areas and hardly any people there to use them.
We got to Palacio de Valle, an incredibly ornate building near the end of the peninsula and went up for a drink on the roof. It’s quite bizarre – absolutely stunning and quite old fashioned but just a few people on the rooftop. There’s a 200 CUP fee each to go to the terrace but that includes a drink each. It’s a nice view and great for Instagram shots but not the best mojitos we had.
We continued our walk afterwards to the southernmost point of Cienfuegos, the Mirador de la Punta.
Apart from a few people who worked there, there was only one other person there. Again, generous numbers of benches but no one to sit on them. We sat in the Mirador at the end, drank a can of beer from the bar in the central part of the park and watched the fading sunset. It was beautiful – I’d never seen blue rays (? opposite of rays?) like that before.
A cyclo driver who’d had a chat with us earlier about the Premier League (not something we’re huge experts on) was waiting for us when we came out, so we took him up on his offer of a ride and set off on the slow cycle back up the road. We made a mistake here, as when we’d asked how much we thought he meant total but he meant each. So what we thought was going to be €5 was actually €10. A lesson to remember to check for future quotes in case we didn’t have the correct amount!
Now to find somewhere to eat. Lonely Planet Cuba*’s top pick didn’t seem to be there anymore. Same with Trip Advisor’s. After a bit of wandering we found Casa Prado Paladar. Though it wasn’t immediately obvious how to get in, all we needed to do was knock on the door and when asked upstairs or down we opted for up to sit on the terrace that looked lovely from the street. Perfect. It was a very relaxed space and we enjoyed Camarones Enchilados (Cuban-style Creole prawns) and chicken breast for me as I was still learning to trust food again after the incident in Viñales. They were both really lovely. Served with rice and black beans and banana crisps which were really nice (and I say that as someone who doesn’t like bananas).
Full day: nosing around the theatre, views from a spiral staircase and a naval museum
We had a leisurely start to the day with breakfast in the regal dining room. Very similar to our other Casa breakfasts, we had fresh juice, fruit, toast, eggs with ham and cheese and French toast, too. It was really nice and we felt very fancy!
We had made a little list of the places to visit and our first stop was Parque José MartÃ.
There was a huge queue outside the Teatro Tomás Terry so we waited a while before realising they were getting tickets for a show, so we popped in to the entrance and Tim indicated ‘can we look around?’ to a member of staff. We were directed to a a sign giving the price for tourists and then to a woman having a cigarette behind the box office booth. We paid her the cash, she took us to a side room, pointed at where we could go, then left us to it. It was another incredible building, really beautifully maintained and with a small display of opera glasses, fans etc in the side salon area. The theatre itself had really interesting seating and an incredible mural on the ceiling. It was great to see the crew getting set up for the performance that so many were eagerly lining up for tickets for, too. We wandered around a bit, looking at posters of past stars who’d performed there, then headed back out to the square, looking at the cars and the little Arco de Triunfo.
Next up we went to the Museo de las Artes Palacio Ferrer which was an incredible wedding cake-like blue building with a rather exposed spiral staircase in a tower in the corner. It was a beautiful building with amazing interiors and although we couldn’t understand the displays we enjoyed looking at all the things: a clever bottle stack for storing aftershaves, a beautifully hand painted cupboard, a room full of art and another full of music memorabilia.
We climbed the tower (only one person allowed to stick their head out of the top at a time at the very top!) and the view was fantastic across the city and out to the sea.
We were going to get a coffee but the place Lonely Planet Cuba* suggested wasn’t there, and in the Teatro Tomás Terry we couldn’t see any bottles of water, which we needed, so instead we got water from a doorway shop.
Back in the square we went into the Catedral de la PurÃsima Concepción, which was quite lovely, and I liked looking at the huge nativity scene, complete with Christmas tree.
We then headed to the naval museum, Museo Historico Naval Nacional, which was a little out of town on the less fancy side of town. The building itself was fascinating, a blue sandcastle-like structure. All the information was in Spanish and a poor woman tried in vain at first to explain things to us, eventually just pointing us round, but we could pick things up from what we’d learnt on previous tours and in the guide book.
We popped back to the hotel to change and suddenly the power was gone. As we headed out the concierge assured us there would be light when we got back as they had a generator. We’d been told there might be blackouts but this was the first time we’d experienced them. He explained that the blackouts aren’t planned but they are usually block by block so it goes for a few hours but not everywhere at once. It must be so difficult living with that uncertainty.
We wandered a little way down the malecon and had a drink at a rooftop bar, El Ocaso, watching the sunset and people hanging out.
We would normally try another place to eat but it was quite difficult to find places, so we went back to Casa Prado Paladar and it was even better than last night. The waitress went through everything they had, their house band were playing and an elderly couple were celebrating a birthday.
Leaving Cienfuegos
We’d originally booked tickets on the Viazul bus to go on to Trinidad but as the concierge at the hotel had rightly pointed out it goes at 9pm and we didn’t fancy waiting around for a bus at that time, to then arrive in a new town late at night. Instead he booked us another Taxi collectivo and we cancelled the bus tickets so they’d be available to someone else.
The journey was the usual bumpy speed fest but we had a good chat with the couple we were travelling with!
Cienfuegos was an interesting and beautiful place to visit. I only wish there were more people there to make use of all that lovely public seating! Everything is located quite close together so you could easily see things in a day or part of a day if you’re pushed for time.
Next stop: Trinidad
If you’d like to have a look through my photos without all the notes I’ve made gallery of the photographs in this post here.
Notes on Travel is a blog by photographer Jayne Lloyd, noting the things I found useful to know when I was visiting Cienfuegos in December 2022 as part of a 3 week trip around Cuba. I’ve tried to be accurate but please do check for up-to-date information before going as things are always changing! I apologise for any mistakes, please do let me know if you have more recent info.
* This post contains some affiliate links, indicated with a ‘*’ – if you click them and decide to buy something I may receive a small cut of the payment, but it won’t cost you more. Thank you!