About Cienfuegos
"The Perl of the South"The city of Cienfuegos is located to the south of the central region of Cuba, with costs to the sea Caribbean. Limit to the north with the county of Villa Clara, to the west with that of Matanzas and to the east with that of Sancti Spíritus.
It owes their origin to the interest of the Spanish colonial authorities to develop new cities in the island. It was founded April 22 1819 by French colonists and Spaniards in an exceptional bay that served from refuge to the pirates and corsairs. The streets were traced forming grids. The architecture of the city conserves abundant neoclassical decoration. Unquestionably it is one of the cities of better layout that exist in Cuba, of wide and right streets, of beautiful walks and parks, of modern and old buildings that you/they respond totally to the external group that surrounds it.
Rich city in palaces (Blanco, Ferrer, Goitizolo...), parks (José Martí, Villuendas, Vault of Gil...), theaters and churches (Cathedral...), and with their Walk of the Grassland, which is prolonged until the sea, shows to the world the charms of the theater Tomás Terry, faithful reflection of the time of gold of Cienfuegos; or the Palacio of Valley, exponent of the prevalent architectural eclecticism in the city, where they harmonize the Mudejar and Byzantine styles with the Venetian one, the Gothic and the Baroque.
In the bay, the fortress "Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles de Jagua", concluded in 1745, it is a solid exponent of the military architecture of the XVIII century in Cuba. When being founded it was the only construction of their type with which it counted the center of the Island to watch over the Caribbean Sea of the attacks of corsairs and pirates.
Cienfuegos is one of the prettiest cities in Cuba for its layout, for its homogeneous architecture of French inspiration, eclectic in more grade, but with an indelible neoclassical print, for its air of modernity and for its good conservation state. The prettiest, they say the own “cienfuegueros” that call it, in plain language neither modesty, “The Perl of the South.” In July of 2005 the historical urban center was inscribed in the list of Patrimony of the Humanity by the UNESCO.
That of Cienfuegos is the second domestic Port Complex, after the port of Havana, and the most important in the extensive south coast. He/she gives encouragement to one of the most modern and prosperous counties in the nation, with a future promissory grace to their impressive industrial estate, to their natural excellences and the development of their productive forces.
