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Home , Guanabacoa, Havana Harbor

CUBA – THEN AND NOW 7 DAYS/6 NIGHTS from $3,699 air & land (1) MIAMI – (5) HAVANA

FLORIDA

1 Miami

Havana 5 Viñales Pinar del Rio

# - NO. OF OVERNIGHT STAYS

TOUR FEATURES DAY 1 ARRIVE IN MIAMI Your celebration of this amazing adventure begins with your arrival in Miami, and transfer to your hotel via their •ROUND TRIP AIR TRANSPORTATION - Round trip airfare from complementary shuttle service. Tonight, join Central Holidays for an Miami introduction to your Cuba people-to-people program. Meet your fellow program participants and U.S. Tour Director, review your travel documents •FIRST-CLASS ACCOMMODATIONS - 6 nights in first class and itinerary, and get ready for the experience of a lifetime in the hotels fascinating island nation of Cuba. •AUTHENTIC CUISINE - 12 included meals consisting of 5 DAY 2 MIAMI/WELCOME TO HAVANA, CUBA This morning, you will b e breakfasts, 5 lunches and 2 dinners transferred to Miami International Airport for a short flight to Havana, Cuba. •TOUR PROGRAM - People-to-people discussions, interactions Upon arrival at Jose Marti International Airport and after clearing customs, and unusual visits such as: Jose Fuster, known as the you will meet your professional, Cuban English-speaking Tour Director. Your people-to-people interactions begin right away with a group lunch at a local “Picasso of Cuba”, a Cigar Factory, a Cuban farmhouse, “paladar,” a privately-owned small restaurant serving homemade Cuban Santeria experience, meet a Cuban baseball player, the dishes. Here you will have a cultural exchange with the restaurant’s owner National Museum of Fine Arts, the Cuban Literacy Museum, and enjoy learning about such topics as Cuban food and the free enterprise Hemingway’s Farm, and more… system in Cuba. Next, you will head to Bocoy Rum Factory, originally established in 1878. Take part in an informative dialogue with a local •TOUR DIRECTOR - Assistance of a Central Holidays Tour docent about the ’s renowned rum industry and the rum Director making process as you tour this long-standing factory and working museum •PROFESSIONAL CUBAN GUIDE - Assistance and guiding from dedicated to Cuban rum. (L) a professional specialized bilingual Cuban guide DAY 3 HAVANA After breakfast you will enjoy a photo stop at Revolution •DELUXE MOTORCOACHES - Touring by private deluxe air- Square, one of the largest public squares in the world. Continuing onwards you will have an educational exchange with a local expert who will speak conditioned motor coach about Havana’s unique architecture, the challenges of renovating the city’s •PEOPLE-TO-PEOPLE INTERACTIONS – There are daily people- exquisite historic buildings, and the future of these restorations. Then, you to-people discussions and interactions on unique Cuban will explore the charming cobblestone streets of Old Havana, a UNESCO events and issues World Heritage Site, while participating in an open dialogue with the local expert on architectural topics of interest. Next, visit the Maqueta Vieja •BAGGAGE HANDLING AND TRANSFERS – Baggage handling Habana Museum that houses the scale model of the city of Havana to see for one piece of checked luggage outside of the airport upon the whole city, and learn about its architecture as well as more about arrival in Cuba restoration efforts. Following lunch in Old Havana, you will tour the Museum •VISA - Cuban travel visa of the Revolution that displays a vast array of documents, weapons, relics and even planes from the revolution. The museum is housed in the former •HEALTH INSURANCE - Cuban health insurance presidential palace that was the home to Cuba’s leaders from the 1920s •WATER - Bottled water on the coach each day until 1959. Heading out of the city you will arrive at the fascinating fishing •GRATUITIES - Pre-paid gratuities for hotel porters, waiters for village of Jaimanitas and visit the home, studio and gallery of world- included meals, all people to people visits, discussions and renowned artist and painter Jose Fuster, known as the “Picasso of Cuba.” Roofs, walls, doorways and benches, stretching for blocks around his studio interactions are adorned with his brightly colored sculptures and mosaics. Here you will •LOCAL TAXES AND SERVICE CHARGES - Hotel & city taxes engage with the Fuster family and meet Fuster himself, if his schedule and service charges permits, as well as local residents of the town, to discuss the influence of •DEPARTURE TAXES - U.S. air departure taxes the artist’s work on their lives and the community. Dinner this evening is at a local restaurant. (B,L,D) DAY 4 HAVANA Today we experience Havana’s world-famous Colon Cemetery to see elaborately sculpted stone and marble memorials. You will discover the cemetery’s captivating history and folklore, and hear stories about the many prominent people laid to rest here, including musicians, filmmakers, writers, politicians, and Major League baseball players. You will also visit the tomb of La Milagrosa – the “Miraculous One” visited by Cubans as a pilgrimage site believed by many to have healing influences. Next it’s off to the district of , known for its rich religious diversity. This town boasts some of the finest colonial churches where locals worship both Catholic and Santeria saints. Santeria is a fusion of religious influences from West African, Caribbean and Roman Catholic beliefs, and was created by slaves who were brought to Cuba to work on the country’s sugar plantations. You will visit the intriguing Guanabacoa Museum of Santeria Orishas and see many displays of Afro-Cuban culture. Here you will also experience a Santeria musical performance and get to know the dancers and locals via a personal exchange. As the day’s activities continue, you will enter the realm of Ernest Hemingway with a visit to Hemingway’s Farm, Finca La Vigia. The house where the Nobel Prize winner lived with his wife Martha for 21 years is situated on this beautiful property overlooking Havana. Tour the perfectly preserved home where many of Hemingway’s personal belongings remain today, as well as his wooden yacht “Pilar.” On this vessel, Hemingway patrolled for Nazis and it was also featured in his novel “Islands in the Stream.” Next you will enjoy lunch at a local restaurant in Havana before a tour and interaction with the founder of a world-famous Spanish Ballet Company who will share the history of her company and dance education in Cuba. As the day proceeds, Here you will meet with a expert and a local historian for a it’s off to the Cuban Literacy Museum where you will learn about a national presentation on the importance of the artistic pieces housed in this effort to educate rural farmers and families. Education and the spectacular museum. Next along your journey, you will travel through rural development of human capital was a post revolution priority for the Cuban Cuba and arrive in Matanzas, known as “the Venice of Cuba” for its many government. After the Revolution in 1959, the country suffered from an bridges. Enjoy a city tour where your guide will provide insight into the city’s exodus of educators and intellectuals. A nationwide program, known as the rich history. Tour the well-preserved El Museo Farmaceútico, an old French Cuban Literacy Campaign of 1961, was instituted in response. More than Colonial pharmacy formerly known as Botica La Francesa that was originally 250,000 literate adults and children, some as young as 11 years old, founded 1882. It was operational until 1964 when it was transformed into formed brigades of people, or brigadistas, and traveled throughout the The Museo Farmaceútico. Time has remained still here where many of the countryside to teacher their fellow Cubans how to read. Through items that would have been found in a pharmacy during that time period interactions with the museum director and docents you will learn about still line the shelves, such as: hand painted French porcelain vases, more this highly successful campaign. Further along, you visit El , than 500,000 original medical recipe formulas, antique bottles and jars, built in 1589 to protect the mouth of . Perched on the other seemingly ancient pharmaceutical items. During an illuminating tour headland opposite the harbor from Old Havana, it can be viewed from miles you will discover the museum’s interesting exhibits and collections around as it dominates the port entrance and is therefore used as a navigational landmark. Before dinner, meet a former Cuban baseball player including a prize-winning dispensary table (winner of a bronze medal in the and join in a dialogue regarding the history and the love of this favorite Paris Exposition of 1900), together with tools used for the production of pastime in Cuba. This evening, experience dinner at a local restaurant. medicines. Next, you will enjoy a brief architectural tour of the famous (B,L,D) DuPont Mansion including lunch. Further along you will experience a pottery-making demonstration at the Taller de Cerámica Artística (artistic DAY 5 HAVANA/VIÑALES/PINAR DEL RIO/HAVANA Today you will ceramics workshop) and interact with artists to learn about this art form. A venture northwest out of Havana through the Cuban countryside to the stop is made at Bacunayagua Bridge, the highest bridge in Cuba with an UNESCO World Heritage site of the Viñales Valley, located in Cuba’s western most mountainous range. This region, situated in the province of Pinar Del observation area offering excellent views for photos. (B,L) Río, is known for its breathtaking scenery. The area is dotted with DAY 7 DEPART HAVANA/USA After breakfast, bid “adios” to Cuba and spectacular limestone mountains (mogotes) rising to a height of up to 300 depart for the airport and your return flight to Miami with memories to meters. Here you will gaze upon spectacular caverns and rivers and cherish and share of your Discover Cuba trip to this enchanting country in discover the region’s vast tobacco fields, still cultivated today using the Caribbean. (B) traditional methods that have survived unchanged for centuries. In Pinar Del Río you will tour the Francisco Donatien Cigar Factory to learn about the manufacturing of fine Cuban cigars and enjoy an educational exchange TOUR PRICE with workers about the history and process of cigar-making in Cuba. As Tour price is $3,699 per person, double occupancy. your day continues, you will visit a traditional tobacco plantation and For single occupancy, add $599. farmhouse where you will get to know an authentic tobacco farmer. During this enlightening interaction you will learn about tobacco cultivation and There is a Cuban departure tax of $32 per person that is not included. This will be charged at final payment. Fuel surcharges, the tobacco leaf drying process then experience a cigar rolling air taxes and departure taxes are valid at the time of printing but demonstration firsthand. Enjoy a visit inside the farmer’s home and have are subject to change. a sit-down with his family while sipping on a “cafecito” – a sweetened shot of Cuban-style espresso coffee. This is a superb opportunity to witness up- This itinerary provides a full time schedule of activities that result close how Cuban families live in a rural setting. After this exciting in meaningful exchanges through people-to-people contact. U.S. law requires all travelers joining this program adhere to the full encounter, a stop at Los Jasmines viewpoint offers the ideal photo-op with time schedule and imposes on Central Holidays the responsibility its awe-inspiring views of Viñales Valley, perfect for panoramic pictures of to ensure such observance. The hotels, itinerary, inclusions and this splendidly beautiful region. (B,L) people to people visits are subject to change. DAY 6 HAVANA/MATANZAS/HAVANA Today’s activities begin after breakfast with an introductory exploration of the world of art in Cuba as you delve into the National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana. Housed in its HOTELS (OR SIMILAR) current location since 1954, the museum boasts an impressive collection Hotels City of artwork from painters dating back to the earliest colonizers of Cuba. Hilton Miami International Airport Hotel Miami Melia Cohiba Havana