Cienfuegos
It’s with good reason that Cienfuegos goes under the nickname “The pearl of the south”.
The laid-back atmosphere, clean streets and warm smiles could easily make it one of your favourite cities.
The drive down from Havana takes you through a beautiful landscape, and as you approach Cienfuegos, the flat desert scenery turns into rich cultivated fields.
Cienfuegos seems a city in its own pace. Smiles are everywhere.
Children are playing all over the streets, but then again: This is the time for the "Festival of Books" as bitter as that may taste in this land of rigid censorship.
But Cienfuegos is by all accounts a wonderful city.
It’s sort of a golden mean between the extreme and the ordinary, seemingly with fewer contrasts, and as such it could be perfect as a prelude to Cuban life.