Trinidad is the top jewel of Cuba’s colonial cities and declared a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1988. Frozen in time since it was the center of the Cuban sugar trade in the 19th century, it’s history and architecture date back to the early 16th century and it is one of the best-preserved colonial cities in the Caribbean. Like Sancti Spiritus, Trinidad was founded by the Spanish conquistador, Diego Velazquez de Cuellar as another of his villas and during the early 19th century, the town grew on the back of the sugar and slave trade and no expense was spared in fashioning the finest Spanish colonial mansions, plazas and churches, which still stand testament to the vainglory of this profiteering era.

 

Many of the sugar barons houses have been turned into museums and the town is so well preserved it creates the illusion of a time warp.