Cuba Fine Arts Holiday Package. Cuba Destination

Day1

Arrival at "Jose Marti" International Airport in Havana City. You are welcomed by your Cuban guide and bus driver for the entire tour.Transfer to your hotel V or Luxury Casa Particular located at the cultural center of Havana City.

Day2

Morning: guided tour of the Museum of Fine Arts (Cuban Collection) where we see the evolution of Cuba's visual arts over the last 300 years. The collection accounts for the richness of our Spanish, French, Chinese, African cultural roots.

Afterwards visit to Callejon de Hamel. An alleyway street caught in Centro Habana neighborhood where an effort of cultural rescue and expansion led by the late fine artist Salvador González has been underway since 1990.

Salvador’s murals and sculptures have taken over entire buildings’ facades– shrines to Afrocuban deities. Meet with local artists to discuss his work and its effects on the neighborhood.

We are now "leaving" Havana and entering Fusterlandia, the studio, residence and wild kingdom of Jose Fuster, one of the most important Cuban ceramists and painters today. Complimentary lunch will be hosted by the artist himself in his personal residence and privately-owned studio-art gallery. Hence, supporting the Cuban people by patronizing privately owned restaurants, stores, art galleries and other small businesses.

Afternoon: visit the studios of important Cuban contemporary artists such as Alicia Leal, Juan Carlos Alom, Britos’ Sisters, Ernesto Benitez and others young prominent artists. Supporting the work of independent Cuban nongovernmental organizations, community projects and independent artists that promote independent business activity in Cuba by patronizing their private entrepreneurial activities is the main intend of our itinerary.

Evening: attend one of the most traditional and popular ceremonies in Cuba, Fire of the Cannon of 9 O'Clock at the Fortress of San Carlos de La Cabana.

Day3

 Morning: visit to the Wifredo Lam Center, a cultural institution devoted to the study, research and promotion of the contemporary visual arts in the developing countries from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. Housed in the former 18th-century home of the Count and Countess de Peñalver, the Wifredo Lam Center is responsible for the organization of the Havana Art Biennial. The gallery's permanent collection includes a significant number of Lam's paintings, drawings, engravings, sculptures.

Visit to Taller Experimental de Gráfica (Experimental Printing Workshop), a cooperative of young Cuban artists whom can be found working on their lithographs over stone matrices in the large, airy building. The variety of colors, sizes, and content of the prints is wide, including pieces with recognizable Cuban icons, bold black and white woodcuts. Support for the Cuban people meaningful exchange in between the US travelers and the Cubans is quite an unforgettable experience of our Cuba tours and travel.

Lunch: a new wave of paladares (privately-owned restaurants) has recently swept the Cuban dining scene offering excellent food and charming ambient. Today we’ll enjoy a welcome lunch at the stylish Paladar San Cristobal, one of Havana's top ten private restaurants.

Afternoon: next we will pay a visit to Piscolabis Bazar-Café, a privately-owned Cuban bazaar and coffee shop run by self-employed (cuentapropista) Cuban fashion designer Sandra De Huelbes to shop for some exclusive clothing and accessories as well as unique souvenirs and local handicrafts. Shopping in these sorts of stores directly supports the Cuban people and the Cuban families financially while encouraging independent entrepreneurial activities that in turn strengthen civil society in Cuba.

Followed by visit to Clandestina Store & Studio. Founded in 2015 by two women Idania del Río and Leire Fernández, this is Cuba's first independent design store. The space includes a design, creation, and experimentation lab—a printing and finishing workshop; a store that receives 40,000 clients a year and an office that manages a global sales operation. Here you can buy the perfect gift or souvenir while supporting a Cuban family!

Followed by guided walking tour of UNESCO World Heritage Site, Old Havana.

Visit to the Cathedral Square, named after the masterpiece of Cuban baroque architecture: the Cathedral of Havana built by the Jesuit order.

The Cathedral's baroque facade is simultaneously intimate and imposing, and one of the two towers is visibly larger, creating a pleasing asymmetry. As with many churches in the city, the building material of Havana Cathedral includes coral, cut and hauled from the edge of the sea by slaves. Look carefully and you'll see fossils of marine flora and fauna in the stone of the cathedral.

We will visit to Square of Arms, ancient military parade ground for Spanish soldiers and surrounded by impressive buildings such as:

Palacio de los Capitanes Generales, the former official residence of the governors (Captains General) of Havana, Cuba. It is home to the Museum of the City of Havana. It houses exhibitions of art and historical artefacts and many of the rooms are preserved with their original Colonial decoration.

Palacio del Segundo Cabo. The seat of the second authority of the island. Today it houses important publishing concerns.

Castillo de la Real Fuerza. The second oldest fortress built by the Spaniards in the West Indies. The castle was recently renovated and reopened in June 2008 to hold the impressive maritime museum. Well laid out exhibits chart Spain and Cuba's naval history.

Visit to Plaza Vieja, the only civic square of colonial times. Notice it doesn't have a church or government building around. Here we will visit important institutions for visual arts.

Continue walking tour onto San Francisco Square, named after the Convent of San Francisco, this square was conceived in 1628, with the objective of supplying water to the ships trading with the metropolis. For many years it also served to stockpile the goods arriving from the harbor.

Chronicles of the time say that the square had a busy commercial life. The people, in humble carts or afoot, sold and bought a variety of goods. It’s important to know that through this place the Spanish immigrants arrived to Cuba.

Free time in the famous handicraft market of Old Havana, located inside the Almacenes de Depósito San José, an old warehouse on the harbourside where you can purchase all sorts of crafts and souvenirs by local artisans.

Evening: we will visit the home of a Cuban, Elsa who has managed to create a privately-owned cultural project La Azotea de Elsa in the rooftop of an Old Havana dilapidated building. Elsa is also the leader of a locally famous band that will play live for our group. Be ready to dance to Cuba’s most popular rhythms such as Son, Rumba and Salsa by the hand of Elsa, her family and friends. This is another great chance for our American visitors to patronize and to learn firsthand about the daily life of ordinary Cubans.

Day4

 Morning: guided tour of Cuba's National Art Schools. ISA professors are all active visual artists, art curators or art critics. The faculty of visual arts provides a combination of theory and practice designed for students serious about pursuing artistic achievement through concentrated study.

Study at the Institute is comparable to conservatory work in the United States. This is a great opportunity to exchange with the new generation of Cuban visual artists. This support for the Cuban people activity will result in a meaningful interaction with the new generation of Cuban visual artists.

Lunch: a new wave of paladares (privately-owned restaurants) has recently swept the Cuban dining scene offering excellent food and charming ambient. Today we’ll enjoy lunch at the stylish Caleza Real, one of Havana's top ten private restaurants.

Afternoon: visit to Habana Art Gallery, specializing in contemporary Cuban art, it is one of Havana's oldest and best-established galleries; in the last few years, it has extensively promoted the latest trends in today's visual arts. Visit current exhibit and meet with Cuban artists and curators.

Followed by visit to the studios of important Cuban contemporary artists such as Rene Pena, Lazaro Saavedra and Jose Angel Toirac. Supporting the work of independent Cuban nongovernmental organizations, community projects and independent artists that promote independent business activity in Cuba by patronizing their private entrepreneurial activities is the main intend of our itinerary.

Evening: enjoy Afrojazz, Cubajazz and Sonjazz at Club La Zorra y El Cuervo, Havana’s most famous Jazz club, located just around the corner from the National Hotel of Cuba. The club features astonishing performances by island bands and soloists! (optional, not included).

Day5

Day tour to Vinales Valley, containing the most spectacular scenery in Cuba and some of the most interesting and varied geological formations on the island. The valley is particularly famous for its great freestanding rock formations called mogotes.

En route to Vinales Valley, we will make a stop in Consolacion del Sur, a town in Pinar del Rio province to visit the outreach-community project El Patio de Peregrin. The brainchild of Cuban painter Mario Pelegrin, this humble art gallery and pottery workshop has become a power horse to promote diverse cultural and artistic initiatives in the area.

During this visit we will engage with Mario Pelegrin and his team to learn more about the role of this independent organization in Pinar del Rio. This support for the Cuban people activity will result in a meaningful interaction with the individuals of Consolacion del Sur, Cuba. We will present donations of educational & humanitarian items and ask how we can help promoting their work in the USA.

Lunch: our tours to Cuba for Americans feature a delicious traditional lunch at the privately-owned bar-restaurant Paladar Yuri & Nino, El Campesino. Yuri is a young woman entrepreneur who started this small restaurant that has expanded into a large establishment. Yuri and her family work hard to create delicious and plentiful food that comes with a beautiful mountain view.

Afternoon: visit local tobacco growing farms and meet with local farmers that have been passing from generation to generation the secrets of growing the best tobacco in the world.

Visit to Mural de la Prehistoria, a huge painting on the side of a Mogote.

We will visit the Cueva del Indio, used by the Guanahatabey Amerindians as a burial site in ancient time, and as refuge from the Spaniards for both Indians and Black slaves alike. We’ll take a short boat ride on the subterranean river running through the cave.

Explore Viñales town at your leisure: its open-air craft market, Parque Marti, town church, and other interesting sites of this charming colonial hamlet.

Visit the Viñales Botanical Garden.

Return to Havana City.

cious traditional lunch at the privately-owned bar-restaurant Paladar Yuri & Nino, El Campesino. Yuri is a young woman entrepreneur who started this small restaurant that has expanded into a large establishment. Yuri and her family work hard to create delicious and plentiful food that comes with a beautiful mountain view.

Day6

 Morning: visit to Finca Vigia, a hilltop villa 20 kilometers east of Havana, where famed author Ernest Hemingway lived from 1939 to 1960. It is here where the writer completed some of his greatest works, including The Old Man and the Sea, Across the River and into the Trees, and Islands in the Stream.

The villa has been maintained as a museum for the past 49 years. It contains original book and short story manuscripts, letters, over 3000 photographs, Hemingway’s fishing tackle and gun collections, furniture, priceless art collection, and a 9000 volume library that contains rare first editions of his books and those of other famous writers.

Finca Vigía has made both the World Monuments Fund List of 100 Most Endangered sites, and The National Trust for Historic Preservation’s 11 Most Endangered Places.

Next we will visit the Cojimar fishing village, where Hemingway kept his boat Pilar. The writer is remembered by the town with a small gazebo that encircles a commemorative bust, sculpted from the melted down propellers donated by local fishermen.

We will have lunch at another privately-owned restaurant, Paladar Casa Grande serving delicious Cuban food in a charming environment. As part of our lunch and our Support for the Cuban People experience to Cuba, we will establish a dialogue with local restaurateurs and staff to learn how they have been able to reconcile the socialist centralized economy with the demands of the free market in the booming private Cuban hospitality industry.

Afternoon: visit to several Cuban Art Galleries such as:

Visit to the Center for the Development of Visual Arts, an art institution that promotes and exhibits the work of Cuban contemporary artists. Visit current exhibit and meet with artists and curators.

Visit to Fototeca de Cuba, an art institution created in 1986 to preserve, study and promote the country’s photographic patrimony and open a space for the promotion of international photography. The Fototeca is an archive with a vast and valuable collection of documents; it is also a museum with the widest and most valuable collection of Cuban photography known and it functions as a gallery with rooms for temporary exhibitions in which works that do not belong to the permanent collection are generally exhibited.

Visit to La Casona Gallery that focuses its activities on the latest movements within contemporary Cuban art, promoting and marketing the new conceptual projects that use different artistic languages, such as photography, installation, video, painting and sculpture.

Evening: enjoy performance of the National Ballet of Cuba at the Great Theatre of Havana (optional) (TBC).

Day7

 Morning: as part of our Support for the Cuban People itinerary, we will visit his privately-owned AMOS Photography Gallery, and get up close and personal with the work of Ramses Batista. We will revisit Mr. Batista’s 20-plus-year career featuring portraiture, social documentary, religion, landscapes, and nudes. Supporting these Cuban entrepreneurs is the main objective of our Support for the Cuban People trips. We will engage with our Cuban hosts in a conversation to learn more about the Cuban culture.

Lunch: we will enjoy a complimentary lunch at AMOS paladar (privately-owned restaurant) owned by Ramses Batista, one of Cuba’s most well-established photographers today. As part of our lunch and our Support for the Cuban People experience to Cuba, we will establish a dialogue with Ramses and his team to learn how they have been able to reconcile the socialist centralized economy with the demands of the free market in the booming private Cuban hospitality industry.

Afternoon: private visit to 331 Art Space Gallery, a successful mix of cutting edge art and entrepreneurship in the new Cuba where the boundaries of artistic freedom of expression and restrictions are constantly challenged in the most ingenious ways. Housed in this 1941 mansion- that has been fully refurbished to modern chic style- is the studio of up-and-coming artists, Frank Mujica, Alex Hernandez and Adrian Fernandez whose drawings, prints, and mixed media artworks can command prices in the thousands of dollars.

Evening: we will visit Fabrica de Arte Cubano (The Cuban Art Factory). This is one of Havana’s finest new art spaces located in a converted factory in Vedado neighborhood. This vibrant cultural center is the brainchild of Afro-Cuban rocker, rapper, composer and filmmaker X Alfonso who, after making a lot of money in a highly successful music career, wanted to put something back into his community. FAC is directed by a team of award-winning musicians and artists. Celebrities Mick Jagger, Michelle Obama, Lady Gaga, Sting and Katy Perry have visited here.

Day8

 Early morning departure to Havana City International Airport for departure.