Santa Clara is filled with beautiful buildings and incredible history. Famous in the guidebooks mainly for Che Guevara, I was most interested to learn about Marta Abreu, an incredible-sounding woman who did a huge amount for the city.
We were in Santa Clara 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 Santa Clara
You can read my notes on what we got up to below, but if you are short on time click below to show my top recommendations on what to do in Santa Clara, plus you can take a look at my more general notes on Cuba, too:
Top recommendations on a map
Full notes on my time in Santa Clara: how we spent 1.5 days in Santa Clara
Travelling to Santa Clara
We travelled to Santa Clara from Trinidad by Viazul bus – it was easy and comfortable and you can read the full details in my notes on Trinidad. We arrived in Santa Clara at 10:50ish and reclaimed our baggage (hold on to your ticket as they do check them), then another couple asked if we’d like to share a taxi to the centre so that was handy. They hadn’t booked a Casa as they didn’t have a VPN and couldn’t book from Cuba, but the taxi driver seemed to be sorting them out.
First afternoon: Che Guevara and another Bodeguita
Our Casa, Hostal D’ Cordero*, was lovely! Gorgeous rooms with high ceilings and antique furniture, and a lovely courtyard seating area in the centre – beautiful! They let us check in early so we put our things away and headed out.
Another town, another square for internet access and this one was quite lovely. After a bit of wandering about we joined the queue for La Pergola, where we sat in the nice courtyard and ate cheese and tomato pizza with frozen lemonades.
The couple we’d shared a taxi with were also there so we chatted to them for a bit. Their taxi driver had got them a really nice place and their hosts were doing them lobster for dinner so they were very happy.
In the afternoon we went to Che Guevara Mausoleum, taking a nice walk through interesting streets.
The monument itself was up a little hill, in a leafy, nicely designed area. A huge statue overlooked a massive parade area, with a mausoleum and museum underneath. Bags and cameras aren’t allowed so we had to walk them over to a separate building. No one was there but eventually a woman came over to help and we went back to the monument. The mausoleum was very unique. A cool room with brick and wood walls, a little area of plants and a water feature and plaques showing the faces of all the guerillors who died with Che in Bolivia.
The museum was good too. Lots of artefacts such as his chess set, books, letters from when he was a child, as well as a uniform and guns. The photos were really interesting too.
We collected my bag, looked again at the statue area and then headed off through the garden, a lovely memorial.
We set off back into town, through another area of the city, and booked a walking tour for tomorrow as they’ve been so good so far.
We headed out with a plan but as I’ve mentioned, many of the places in the Lonely Planet Cuba* are now sadly closed. We went to Café-Museo Revolución and that was really nice, full of lots of interesting things and an interesting story.
We’d looked on Trip Advisor to find some restaurants and the first one we tried (which was also in LP) was closed and apparently not a restaurant. We went for a drink at La Boudegita el Medio, which our Casa host had recommended for food, but tried somewhere else first, which also didn’t seem to be a restaurant. We went back to La Bodeguita, slightly concerned as dishes kept getting wiped off the board before we could order, but we managed to order pork and beef steak with rice, both of which were delicious. Mojitos, an excellent band and celebration in the air made for a wonderful evening.
Full day: walking tour, Marta Abreu and blackouts
We woke today to the sounds music, bells and something sounding like an anthem – very rousing! I think we were near a school. We got ready and headed to the leafy courtyard for our breakfast. A lovely start to the day!
We took our time before heading to the square to check our walking tour was going ahead and meet the guide if so. Bookings had to be approved and without internet we hadn’t been able to to check. It was, but it was only us and the guide, Miguel, so we ended up with a private tour!
He was brilliant! We learnt so many things we wouldn’t have known about, such as Marta Abreu who did a huge amount to support Santa Clara and Cuba, such as setting up the fire station, building schools, theatres – incredible! We also learnt more about the battles in Santa Clara and the people who were involved and died doing so. We saw where the revolutionaries derailed the armoured train, and the statue of Che with a child, which was full of little details of his life and very interesting. Che Guevara truly is everywhere in Cuba and we were interested to hear how people feel about him.
Afterwards we went to El Pingüino, an icecream place Miguel had recommended, where it was nice to sit in the air con and eat two scoops of chocolate icecream topped with a pink cream, sauce and hundreds and thousands.
We wrote some postcards to send to the UK and took them to the post office, then went to the ETECSA office to buy another 5 hour wifi card.
We headed back to the Casa to relax for a bit and watched the second half of the France Morocco match (2-0 France).
We were just putting our shoes on when the power went out. Many places have generators but it must be so difficult having this happen so frequently.
We popped to the square and although it was dark the wifi was still live. We’d been thinking about our plans to travel tomorrow and decided to get a taxi instead of the bus. We’d be spending all day travelling otherwise.
For dinner we tried a few places that were closed before going to El Sol for ropa vieja with a nice rooftop view and a striking mural.
Leaving Santa Clara
We’d originally planned to get the Viazul bus from Santa Clara to Varadero but the timings meant we’d get there quite late and as we only had two nights there we booked a Taxi Collectivo through our Casa instead, meaning we’d be there before midday.
Santa Clara was another beautiful city with a lot to learn about. The walking tour was an excellent way to see most of the main sights and as everything is located fairly close together so you could easily see things in a day if you’re pushed for time.
Next stop: Varadero
If you’d like to look through my photos without all the notes I’ve made a 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 Santa Clara in Cuba 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!