As Havana boasts 1950s glamour and Camagüey exuberant art, Santiago de Cuba flaunts with gusto the island nation’s fiery history. From the Casa de Diego Velasquez, the oldest home in Latin America, to UNESCO’s best-preserved site of Spanish-American military architecture, the Morro Castle, Santiago de Cuba is packed with history and elegies to a valiant past. It’s here that a young Fidel Castro made history invading the Moncada Barracks, him and his army of rebels, pressing start on the Cuban Revolution.
But history-aside, there are many faces to Santiago de Cuba.