Palacio de Valle in Cienfuego

Palacio de Valle is an impressive building in Cienfuegos. It was built by the italian architect Alfredo Colli 1913 to 1917 following design ideas created by the moors, the arab people in Andalusia, Spain.

The first owner was a merchant, who sold it to a great land owner, who finished the villa. Later, it became a gambling casino owned by dictator Batistas brother. Today, you can find a restaurant and a hotel in it. As a visitor you can go and have a look at is. Some parts are open to the public. On the second floor you can find a café on the roof-deck with a great view on the Cienfuegos bay (Bahia de Cienfuegos).

The three different towers symbolize each a certain character: the gothic tower stands for strength, the indian tower stands for love and the moorish tower stands for religion.

Take care!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Teatro Terry in Cienfuegos

Here we have the theatre of Cienfuegos. It’s called after Tomás Terry, a very rich sugar cane plantations owner originally from Venezuela. It’s built at the end of the 19th century following the neoclassical principles, just like many other parts of the old town of Cienfuegos.

In a painting at the ceiling right above the stage in front of the curtain, you can find “1889”. I don’t know, if this is the finishing year or the founding year. But, having in mind the founding year of the town, 1881, this is a very interesting connection.

There’s room for about 900 visitors in the theater and it is still used i.e. for piano concerts. Although there are chairs in the parquet and on the upper floor tiers, the loges don’t have seats. I guess, that’s because there is no need for upper class loges in a communist country.

As I mentioned earlier, here we also had to pay an additional fee (5 CUC) for the allowance to take photographs. The entrance fee for the theatre instead was covered by our tour guide.

Come, take a break, and enjoy the architecture of a past epoch of glamour and glory for the rich and upper class members, but hard hand work for the others.  You can find this kind of architecture in many places in Europe. But, would you have expected to find it in Cuba? I didn’t!

Take care!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Cienfuegos

Cienfuegos is a quite young city. It was founded in 1881. When looking on a map, you can see, that this city is built by following a plan. The avenues and the streets forming a pattern. This plan was set up for the rebuild (1825) after a heavy storm, that destroyed nearly the complete old residential area. 1829 the rebuilt settlement got the new name Cienfuegos, derived for the spanish governor José Cienfuegos. In 1881 the settlement received the town carter.

We only were a few hours in this city for visiting the theatre located at the Parque José Martí, a nice and big square. Even it is called “Parque” (= park), I’d call it a square with some trees and other plants. When talking about a park, I have another idea how it should look like. On one of the small sides, you can find an arc de triumph build by french settlers for commemorating their origin.

Opposed to the arc you can find a very nice building, the Casa de la Cultura Benjamin Duarte. On the opposite side of the square you can find the Cathedral de la Purisma Conception.

In my next post I’ll show you the theatre en detail.

So stay tuned.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.