This sprawling industrial city, known as the “City of Squares,” radiates around a compact colonial core arranged in an easily navigated grid. Its many historic plazas include Parque Calixto García, named for the general who liberated the city from the Spanish in 1872. With its abundance of small museums, Holguín has an especially active cultural life. Some tourists bypass the town to visit the hilltop tourist complex of Mirador de Mayabe or the beach resort of Guardalavaca, which offers various ecological and archaeological attractions as well as spectacular scuba diving.
NEED TO KNOW
Mirador de Mayabe • Alturas de Mayabe • 24 42 2160 • 9am–7pm daily • Adm: CUC$2 
Casa Natal de Calixto García • Frexes & Miró • 24 42 5610 • 9am– 5pm Tue–Sat, 10am– 6pm Sun • Adm: CUC$1Museo Provincial • Calle Frexes 198 • 24 46 3395 • 8am– 4:30pm Tue–Sat, 8am–noon Sun • Adm: CUC$1; cameras CUC$1 Playa Guardalavaca Chorro de Maíta • Carretera Guardalavaca-Banes • 24 43 0201 • 9am– 5pm Mon–Sat (to 1pm Sun) • Adm: CUC$2 - Holguín bustles with events during Semana de la Cultura Holguinera.
1.Mirador de Mayabe
Offering a stunning vista over the Mayabe valley, this lookout is the setting for a fine hotel, a country-style restaurant, and a cliff-top pool with a bar where its famous beer-drinking donkey Pedro hangs out.
2.Plaza Calixto García
The most prominent feature of this large, tree-shaded plaza is the marble monument of General Calixto García. The busy square is also home to the city’s main museums. Casa Natal de Calixto García, where the hero was born, is a block east of here.
Plaza Calixto García
3.Plaza San José
This cobbled square is the most intimate of the city’s plazas and a pleasant place to sit on a bench beneath shady trees. Surrounded by colonial buildings, it is home to the Iglesia de San José, which is topped by a domed clocktower.
Plaza San José
4.Plaza de la Marqueta
The ruins of a former market stand over this partially restored plaza, which features life-sized bronze figures. It is lined with shops including the Cuban Book Institute’s Linotype print shop.
5.Museo Provincial
The Neo-Classical building that houses this musem used to be a social club for the Spanish elite. Displays include historical artifacts, most notably the Hacha de Holguín – a pre-Columbian green peridot axe carved with human motifs.
6.Casa de la Trova
This is one of Cuba’s liveliest music venues with two programs daily. It is named for Faustino Oramas “El Guayabero” Osorio, who played the guitar here until his death in 2007, at the age of 96.
7.Playa Guardalavaca
A one-hour drive northeast of Holguín, this resort is lined with wonderful beaches and unspoiled coral reefs that tempt diving enthusiasts.
Playa Guardalavaca
8.Gibara
A windswept coastal town, Gibara was once a prominent port protected by a fortress. Known as “Villa Blanca” (White City), it is packed with colonial buildings. It also has several museums, and is home to an annual festival of low-budget cinema.
9.Chorro de Maíta
This burial place, Cuba’s largest pre-Columbian Indian site, is an archaeological treasure with skeletons and funerary offerings on display. Adjacent to it is a re-created Indian village called Aldea Taína.
Chorro de Maíta
10.Loma de la Cruz
With views over the town, this hill is named for the Holy Cross at its summit and can be reached via 485 steps. It is the site for the Romerias de Mayo pilgrimage every May.
ORGANS
The Fábrica de Órganos at Carretera de Gibara 301 is the only Cuban factory still making mechanical hand-driven órganos pneumáticos (air-com- pression organs) using the traditional methods. They are fed with cards punched with the score. There is no guarantee that you will see or hear one being played.
