Cienfuegos, that Shining Pearl in the South of Cuba

A look at the urban center of Cienfuegos brings us back to the city, which, despite its 204^th anniversary on April 22^nd , maintains the atmosphere of a neoclassical seafaring city with its French features.

The rosette of the city marks the founding point of the former Fernandina de Jagua colony, right in the place where Don Luis De Clouet and a group of settlers of Gallic origin met to create the town, which would become Village 10 years later.

The Cienfuegos sugar boom was supported by the establishment of several mills, the planting of sugarcane fields and the accelerated introduction of slave labor and the railway, together with the commercial growth and its port to turn it into a city in 1880.

Considered one of the cities of great eclecticism, in it converge lines of neoclassical buildings and Art Nouveau and Art Deco styles, with high props, wide portals and columns.

When in 2005, due to its architectural values, it won the title of Cultural Heritage of Humanity, it was stated in Unesco declaration that Cienfuegos represents an exceptional and advanced example of its implementation in urban planning in Latin America in the 19^th century.

It also added that this urban center is considered "the first and exceptional example of an architectural ensemble representative of the new ideas of modernity, hygiene, and order".

More than two centuries old, marked by other benefits, like that of having children like the world-renowned Cuban singer-songwriter Benny Moré or emblematic groups like Aragón Orchestra.

It has in Paulina Álvarez an Empress of Danzonete, it has the longest Prado Promenade in Cuba, the pocket bay that sheltered corsairs and pirates, as well as a unique moon, which was called Maroya by local aborigines, and Cienfueguera for the poets who still sing to it from the coast.

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff