Next up – we’re headed to the Cathedral Square where the Cathedral of the Virgin Mary of the Immaculate Conception stands, majestically presiding over the Square. It’s a fabulous church. Beautiful architecture, with a baroque exterior, and gorgeous inlaid stone interior. We spend a few minutes here – before meeting at the corner of the Square to visit the Belle Arts Graphic workshop.
Onward we go – now to the Association of printers that was formed in 1962, by the artist Orlando Suarez, to give artists a place to practice and keep the traditions of print art alive for future generations.
18th Century presses are still in use today (the Tat guys below are using an original press)…
…there are wood forms used as presses – and just tons of great art here. All different styles and formats.
We don’t really find anything that rings our bell – which is a shame, because art is one of the few things we can purchase and bring back to the States. Others do buy – which makes for a nice keepsake – and visit!
We press onward – to the Ration store! OMG – totally amazing! Julie leads us in and gives us an overview of how the rations work. Instated on March 12, 1962 (thank you Steve for the great pdf with details!!!!), the ration stores came about in partially due to necessity and also due to the socialist “equity” system. Most families today rely on the Libretrade Abastecimiento (literally, "Supplies booklet") for their basic food intake.
Julie holds up a Ration or Supply booklet, which every Cuban citizen has, and explains how it works. Every month, no matter your age, you are allotted a certain amount of rice 7 lbs), beans (1 lb), chicken, sugar (4 lbs), eggs, cooking oil, salt, coffee, etc. All priced in Cuban Pesos, and priced extremely cheaply.
They display the different items on the shelves behind the counter – they even offer cigars at a very cheap price. When you come in for your supplies, the ration book is marked every month to show what you have purchased and to what you are still entitled. Amazing!
Now it is on to the Cigar hotel! The most important cigar factories are all based in Habana – thus the reason Cuban cigars are called Habanas! But, we are not allowed to visit a cigar factory, go figure, so we have to make due with what we can…which means the Cigar store/hotel. Almost all the hotels have a theme – Cigars, Chocolate, Friars (Las Frailes which has a statue of a monk in front of the entrance), Hotel Florida (you can figure that one out), etc. We are visiting the Hotel Condede Villanueva, which dates from the early 1700’s.
The hotel is built in the traditional style of Colonial housing – large open courtyard with balconied 2nd story. In the early days, these structures were all private homes and built so that the slaves could reside and work (kitchen, etc.) on the ground floor, while the families lived on the upper floors. The more important you were to the family, the higher the floor where you would reside.
This particular structure was restored in the late 1980’s and turned into a hotel dedicated to Cuban Cigar lovers. We all troop upstairs and stuff ourselves into a little cigar shop and coffee bar. Grabbing seats, we get to watch a cigar rolling demonstration and learn all about the different leaves that make a cigar (the wrapper, filler and binder). The leaves are all different sizes and textures – its really interesting to watch the torcedora (cigar roller) work the leaves together into a finished cigar.
Even more interesting though is our first taste of real Cuban coffee! Which I decline, until they bring the rum out – and well – I think I’m going to become a rum fan now! That coffee was great…Maggi enjoyed the extra snifter of rum that was poured….and the cigars…they are fun props!
Stumbling out of the Cigar café, and back down to the courtyard (remember – we’ve not had lunch yet!) – we get to linger a bit in the hotel, watching the wildlife wander about and looking at the photo exhibition depicting the devastation Sandy wreaked on Santiago.
Back on the bus – we head to lunch. We are pleasantly surprised when we are dropped off at Prado y Neptuno, an Italian restaurant right across the street from our hotel. Cubans love their Italian food (it is EVERYWHERE in this city) and this particular restaurant gets great reviews on Trip Advisor and never figured we’d be able to go there – so this was a bonus. We all order the Pizza – Jamon and Queso for us carnivores, Margherita for Maggi. Yum Yum!
Dessert is – of course – Helado, but also with a Churro – those deep fried sugar/cinnamon sprinkled delights. Nice mid-day meal – and another bonus is we can hit the hotel for a pit stop before we continue on with our day!
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