Trinidad is a beautiful, picture perfect town with beach and mountains to explore nearby. It is a wonderful place to spend time and meet people.
We were in Trinidad in early December as part of a 3-week trip in Cuba, so all my notes are based around my experiences 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 Trinidad
You can read my full 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 Trinidad, plus you can take a look at my more general notes on Cuba, too:
Travel:
Taxi Collectivo: our Casa host in Cienfuegos arranged the Collectivo for us to get to Trinidad and it was quick and easy.
Taxis: our Casa host in Trinidad arranged taxis for a couple of day trips we took – one was a beautiful vintage car and one was a more normal car. Both were very reasonable and straightforward (one just felt a bit more glamorous!)
Viazul bus: we took the Viazul bus from Trinidad to Santa Clara and it was easy and comfortable.
Do/see/visit:
GuruWalk: free (tip generously) walking tour of Trinidad – great to get a feel of the town, learn some history, local knowledge and realities of the place.
Casa de la Música: enjoy the music, dance if you want to!
GalerÃa de Arte Universal Benito Ortiz: amazing building with interesting art available to buy.
Museo Nacional de la Lucha Contra Bandidos: the iconic yellow tower. Interesting small museum with a really good view from the tower (and where the cover photo from Lonely Planet Cuba* was taken, it turns out)
Museo de Historia Municipal: another interesting small museum with great view from the tower.
Playa Ancon: stunning beach just a short taxi journey from Trinidad town.
Salto del CaburnÃ: beautiful waterfalls reached by a steep but gorgeous hike from Parque de la Villa Caburni in the mountains, a short taxi journey from Trinidad town. You don’t need a guide but you do have to pay $10 each for access.
Infotur: pick up a useful map.
Parque Céspedes: for public internet with an ETECSA card.
Drink:
Café Don Pepe: a wonderfully relaxed garden café with great coffee. Have a ‘Don Pepe’ for a coffee/ice cream/honey/chocolate combo. The Google Map link isn’t quite in the right place, it’s actually immediately on the right as you enter Plazuela del Cristo from C. Cristo (if you’ve come from the direction of Plaza Mayor).
Taberna La Canchánchara: home of the Canchánchara, a delicious drink of rum, lemon, honey and water over ice served in a little ceramic pot.
Eat:
Bistro Trinidad: delicious food and a beautiful roof terrace.
Restaurante El Dorado: yummy food in a what feels like a very fancy living room.
San José: good selection of food with huge portions, wide selection of drinks and air conditioning.
Restaurante La Esquina 373 : we had a good pizza and good view of the football World Cup here!
Bakery: there was a really good bakery on C. Rosario, near Restaurante La Esquina 373, but it isn’t on Google Maps.
Stay:
Casa de Miriam*: spacious oasis of a Casa with lots of outside seating and a fabulous host.
Useful to have:
ExpressVPN*: have this installed on your device if you want to access the internet when in Cuba.
Lonely Planet Cuba*: for planning where to visit, walks etc., but be aware that a lot has changed since it was published (we were using the 2022 edition), so check for changes and be flexible! You can buy it via Bookshop.org*, Amazon* or your local bookshop.
Eyewitness Travel Phrase Book Spanish*: I had this from our trip to Spain, there is probably a book better suited to Cuba but this served me well for getting by. You can buy it via Bookshop.org*, Amazon* or your local bookshop.
Top recommendations on a map
Full notes on my time in Trinidad: how we spent 3.5 days in Trinidad
Travelling to Trinidad
Originally we had booked a Viazul bus to get from Cienfuegos to Trinidad, but it runs late in the evening so we asked our case host to book us a Taxi Collectivo instead (we cancelled the bus tickets so they were available to other people), which was very straightforward and took us from door to door.
We pulled up on a busy-looking road filled with single-storey colourful houses and were greeted by welcoming and smiley Miriam, who lead us through a long corridor into a magical oasis of colourful buildings, set far back from the road. Our room was right at the back, tucked away – perfect.
First afternoon: useful maps, phrase book translations, museums and Cancháncharas
Trinidad is really beautiful. Filled with colourful buildings in the Spanish colonial style it’s very much a picture postcard looking town.
We got a pretty good map from the Infotur, got offered a lot of taxis, horse rides, money changes and even massages, but no pressure at all and mostly all in one particular area.
We found a doorway selling water and fizzy orange and popped back to the Casa to plot where we’d like to visit and use our phrase book* to write some questions in Spanish for Miriam as sadly we don’t speak it beyond the very basics: can we please book a taxi for the beach on Sunday, please can we have breakfast tomorrow at 9? It seemed to do the trick and it was all arranged.
With that sorted we headed out again. We used the internet in Parque Céspedes booked on to a free walking tour for the next day as it had been so good in Havana and set off to see the sights.
The Museo de Historia Municipal was closed on Fridays, so we went to the Museo Romántico, which as warned in Lonely Planet* includes guides hopping up to show you round, despite our best efforts to say no thank you multiple times. Although it’s a nice thought and I’m sure would have been great if we spoke more Spanish, it did feel a bit rushed and we didn’t really look at things properly.
Next we headed to the Museo Nacional de la Lucha Contra Bandidos (National Museum of the Struggle Against Bandits) where we didn’t really understand the installations as they were in Spanish of course but the view from the tower was great and it turned out to be where the image from the cover of Lonely Planet Cuba* was taken, too.
We headed over the square to Café Don Pepe for refreshment. It truly was a lovely oasis of calm in the cool greenery. We did have envy of the people having what we later discovered were ‘Don Pepes’ when we’d gone for normal coffees but we came back another day! The Google Map link isn’t quite in the right place, it’s actually immediately on the right as you enter Plazuela del Cristo from C. Cristo (if you’ve come from the direction of Plaza Mayor).
We then went in to GalerÃa de Arte Universal Benito Ortiz, which was an amazing building and had some interesting art: paintings, drawings and dog sculptures made from baskets which were quite cool.
In the evening we went for Cancháncharas at the place where they were invented, Taberna La Canchánchara. Cancháncharas are rum, lemon, honey and water over ice served in a little ceramic pot with a wooden stick for mixing it all up – really tasty and probably a very nice thing to drink if you have a cold! A band was playing so there was a lovely atmosphere and we were quite amused by what appeared to be a couple getting told off (not in a horrible way) for asking for something other than their famous drink, too.
Miriam had recommended San José for dinner and we had a lovely meal in the air conditioned section. My pork Milanese was lovely but it was absolutely huge! The sweet potato fries were interesting too, they looked like normal spud wedges but just had a slight sweet potato taste.
First full day: walking tour, watching football with the opposition and a restaurant to ourselves
We went for breakfast in the lovely outside seating area, chatted to the other couple staying at Casa de Miriam, a really nice couple on their honeymoon, and enjoyed the lovely fresh juice, fruit, eggs and bread with coffee.
We spent the morning on the walking tour we’d booked, meeting the group in the square by Café Don Pepe’s. The tour was really interesting, a lot of the history of the town plus what’s going on now with plenty of opportunities to ask questions. They took us into Taberna La Canchánchara again so I got to take a picture of the drink in daylight, which is always nice. Our guide also took us into a bodega to explain what supplies the government provides, which was very insightful. Trinidad is beautiful but as with all of Cuba things were difficult at the end of 2022.
This was the day that England played France in the World Cup, so we went in search of somewhere to watch the match and got settled in Restaurante La Esquina 373 after a bit of back and forth (the first bar wanted us to sit upstairs and watch a screen that was between the first and second floor). We were in the minority watching with mainly French people and it was a good game, despite the result for England. At least we don’t need to worry about trying to find places to watch future matches! We had some drinks and split a margarita pizza, too, which was really nice.
We had another go at visiting Museo de Historia Municipal, which was open today and very interesting. It was similar to other museums we have visited, very much about the houses themselves as well as the area of history they specialise in, but it was nice to be able to wander about freely and the view from the tower (accessed via a slightly wonky blue wooden staircase) was amazing! Particularly nice in the golden light of the late afternoon.
After a break back at our Casa we went for dinner at restaurant number 3 on Trip Advisor, Bistro Trinidad. It was only a little bit away from the main square and we were very surprised that there was no one else there. We had the whole lovely restaurant to ourselves and sat on the roof terrace amongst the trees (I particularly enjoyed the one that came up from the ground floor). Tim had pasta with meatballs and I had lemon chicken spaghetti, both were lovely.
We then went to Casa de la Música where we drank mojitos, enjoyed the music from the band and all the people popping up and suddenly salsa-ing away, including a guy who I can only describe as a simmering ball of dancing energy, desperate to release the power of salsa. On the way home Plaza Carillo seemed to be where all the locals were partying, but we headed back, looking forward to the beach the next day.
Second full day: beach day
I am very pale and I burn very easily so we had arranged to go earlyish to the beach, Playa Ancon. Miriam had arranged the taxi for us and we’d expected a normal taxi, but I was absolutely delighted to see a gorgeous red ‘53 Chevy waiting to take us – what a great ride! Bouncing along the roads with the mountains in the background and Sunday life all around us. Our young driver dropped us at the beach, asked when we’d like to come back and we wandered towards the pale sand and astonishingly clear blue sea.
We found a couple of seats with a good bit of shade and settled in, catching sight of a school of fish leaping over the waves, which was amazing!
We spent the morning sitting looking at the sea, swimming in the sea, taking photos of the sea and walking along the edge of the sea – bliss!!
We could have spent the whole day there but as I mentioned, I burn very easily, so at 1pm our ride arrived promptly to take us back to the Casa.
We spent a relaxed afternoon doing washing and then wandering around the town again. We visited Plaza de Santa Anna, took photos, bought orange soda and biscuity things from a bakery (on C. Rosario, near Restaurante La Esquina 373, but it isn’t on Google Maps.) and had them in the square while checking our messages online.
Our dinner plan was Restaurante El Dorado, number 8 on Trip Advisor so you’d expect it to be fairly busy but it was deserted. There was one man sitting there when we went in but he left whilst we were having a solo performance from a singer/guitarist. It started out a bit awkward but he handed me a maraca so it soon turned into laughter as I kept losing my rhythm. Tim was much better at it than I was, but it was a lot of fun!
Our meals were lovely and extremely reasonable -Tim had lamb ragu and I had a beef taco. The whole meal with a homemade frozen lemonade, water and two beers came to under €14. Unbelievable.
It was early so we decided to have a daiquiri at El Floridita and yet again it was just us, the barman and a salsa instructor (and the statue of Hemingway). Oddly the daiquiris are more expensive in this one than the original. Thankfully we weren’t required to dance.
Third full day: a very steep but beautiful hike
Our taxi to the waterfalls, Salto del CaburnÃ, arrived at 9 and we headed off up the mountains, slightly nervous that the second man in the car was a surprise tour guide but luckily he was just being dropped off on the way. Don’t get me wrong, tour guides are brilliant, but sometimes you just want to explore at your own pace. We stopped at a viewpoint on the way and it spectacular to see where we’d been yesterday from so far up!
Pulling up in Topes de Collantes we were again nervous as the driver went past the visitor centre, where we thought we’d get out and get a map, but he dropped us just before the walk starts, in Parque de la Villa Caburni and there’s no need for a map, the whole hike is really well signposted. Apparently they normally drive people to the proper hiking start down the hill but his car being automatic it couldn’t do the steep roads. There was some complicated discussion that made it sound like he’d made special arrangements that they’d know we were coming but we just entered as normal I think, paying €10 each to the man at the entrance.
It was a lovely hike down through lush forest. We took our time, unlike the young alphas that jogged down past us, as the paths were steep and needed our attention. We headed over to the main waterfall – the guys were there but we soon had it to ourselves and took some nice photos. Then we headed down to the bit where others were swimming but it seemed like the water would be a bit cold, so we just sat for a while instead.
The hike back up was pretty steep and we had to take plenty of moments to admire the views!
Eventually we were back at the top, waiting for our return taxi, looking at the cute little chalet area, abandoned hotel with a goat outside and caught our breath.
We’d hoped to buy something for breakfast the next day as we had an early start. The bakery was pretty sparse but we managed to get a couple of rolls and some orange soda and tried Café Don Pepe again. We had a lovely shady seat and finally got to try their signature drink, the Don Pepe – coffee with chocolate icecream, honey and a bit of chocolate sauce. Exactly what we needed after the morning’s exertions! Really delicious and refreshing.
We got ourselves organised for travelling tomorrow, settled our bill with Miriam and headed out. The plan was to go to Ristorante Sapori Italiani, the top rated place on Trip Advisor, but when we got there our plans were scuppered as it was closed and a sign said ‘weekly rest’ – a reminder not to rely on Google – we’d checked yesterday and it’d said it’d be open.
Backup plan, we headed to the number 2 restaurant, Il Trionfo. It was very Christmassy and in a good location by the church just off the main square but again only us and another couple of women in there, though we did go early. We were given a little plate of crackers with a garlicky dip and then I had carbonara and Tim had a spaghetti with a tomatoey sauce with crispy bacon.
We headed back to the hotel and found a place selling water for 200cup a big bottle, which was a relief, ready for our bus journey tomorrow.
Leaving Trinidad
We took the Viazul bus from Trinidad to Santa Clara. The bus was at 7:30am and you have to be there an hour before, so it was a pretty early start. Miriam insisted on giving us an espresso as we were leaving, which was so lovely and we headed off in the dark. We were there before 6:30 and there were already people sitting waiting but of course the office wasn’t actually open. A bus pulled in about 6:45 and the people working on it opened the office eventually, a sort of queue forming.
The bus was pretty small – only about 24 seats and 4 members of staff, too. Tim swapped our online booking form for tickets and we handed over our bigger bags for a ticket for them to go in the hold. Some people who’d been there before us hadn’t booked in advance and were told it was full and they’d have to wait to see if there were any no shows. They headed off to get a collectivo which was good as there wasn’t room in the end. This is why I keep mentioning how important it is to cancel your Viazul tickets if you decide to take another mode of transport, though!
People didn’t really queue for the bus so we made sure we stood near the door and hopped on as soon as we could without pushing in, managing to sit together.
It was a pretty comfortable ride, not freezing at all, which was what we’d been led to believe online. We just read, listened to music and stared out of the window. We stopped briefly in Cienfuegos and a few got off and a few got on – here we observed that you shouldn’t get out without making it clear you’re in one of the seats, or you risk losing it!
We really enjoyed our time in Trinidad and it was definitely worth spending a bit longer there to do a few trips nearby.
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.
Next stop: Santa Clara
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!