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Tiny Trinidad,
whose days of prosperity are preserved in aspic, is, quite simply, one of the
finest colonial towns in all of the Americas. Wholly disproportionate
to its small size, Trinidad ranks as one of Cuba's greatest attractions. Only
a few square blocks of cobblestone streets, pretty pastel-colored
18th- and 19th-century houses, palaces, and plazas, Trinidad
can be seen in just a few hours. But its serenity is so soothing that many
visitors are easily coaxed into much longer stays. Magically frozen in time
and tastefully scruffy where it needs to be, the streets tend to be more
populated by horse-drawn carts than automobile traffic, and old folks still
crouch by windows, behind fancy wrought-iron grilles, to peer out at passersby.
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Founded in 1514 on
the site of a native Taíno settlement, Villa de la Santísima
Trinidad was the fourth of
Diego Velázquez's original seven villas. Trinidad
quickly grew and later prospered in princely fashion from the sugar-cane
industry concentrated in the outlying Valle de los Ingenios.
The sugar boom that took root by the mid-1700s created a coterie of wealthy
local sugar barons, who built magnificent estates in the valley and manor
houses in town and imported thousands of African slaves to work the fields. Trinidad's golden age, though, proved to be
short-lived. Slave uprisings on plantations, intense European competition,
and, finally, independence struggles throughout the Caribbean
all took their toll on the Cuban sugar industry.
When the bottom
dropped out of sugar by the 1860s, Trinidad's
economy collapsed and the town drifted into obscurity. Its economic failure
in the late 19th century is a true blessing in the 21st: Trinidad
escaped further economic development and modernization that surely would have
obscured the colonial nucleus that UNESCO honored
as a World Heritage Site in 1988. Even in the 1950s, in pre-revolutionary,
capitalist Cuba, the
beauty and historical value of Trinidad
prompted the government to declare it off-limits to further development.
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Trinidad has very
much been discovered, not only by those exploring the "real"
interior Cuba, but also by package tourists in beach resorts who visit on
organized day trips. However, the massive tourism infrastructure normally
associated with a star attraction hasn't yet invaded Trinidad.
The only large and upscale hotels are located beyond town; most independent travelers stay in any of Trinidad's
300-plus casas particulares,
an option that seems appropriately low-key and authentic in this fetching
town
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