Santiago de Cuba is much less touristy than Havana and the cradle of Cuban music

Santiago de Cuba was the capital of Cuba until 1533

The streets in Santiago `s old town are narrow and sometimes steep

The hillside location provides regularly a nice view on the harbor and the mountains of the Sierra Maestra

The street vendors sell their products singing

From the balcony of the town hall Fidel Castro proclaimed on January 1, 1959 winning the Revolution

At the Parque Cespedes you see the "Basilica Catedra " built in the

nineteenth century

Previously stood on this place (sixteenth century) the Episcopal church in which Diego Velazquez and several bishops are buried

Santiago de Cuba is the cradle of Cuban music

On Calle Heredia 206 you will find the Casa de la Trova music room where the masters of Cuban son, as Compay Segundo and Elias Ochoa, have played

Santiago was an infamous port of importation of African slaves

They had the nearby copper ore mines for the production of guns and equipment for sugar refineries

The wealth lured in the seventeenth century French and English pirates

To defend against the pirates the Spanish built the fortress El Moro at the narrow entrance to the bay

Monument to Antonio Maceo Revolution Square

26 Great machettes as images on the Square of the Revolution