Upon arrival at Jose Marti International Airport in Havana City, you’ll begin your Cuba travel adventure with introductions from your Authentic Cuba Travel® Tour guide.

Along with your bus driver, your guide will be with you during the entirety of your stay ensuring that all of your arrangements are effortless.

Your Cuban tour guide and bus driver will welcome you and take you to the Casa Particular or Quinta Avenida Hotel, both centrally located nearby Havana’s entertainment district, Vedado.

A complimentary breakfast is served at the hotel from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. Morning: Our Cuba tours usually begin with a meeting with Cuban architect Miguel Coyula from the organization overseeing Havana’s urban development, Grupo para el Desarrollo Integral de La Ciudad. Mr. Coyula will introduce you to the historical center of the city as you explore the Scale Model of Old Havana.

This visit is followed by a welcome Lunch: a new wave of paladares (privately-owned restaurants) has recently swept the Cuban dining scene offering excellent food and charming ambient. Today we’ll enjoy a welcome lunch at the stylish Paladar San Cristobal, one of Havana's top ten private restaurants.

Afternoon: After lunch, it’s off to an experimental printmaking venture, Taller Experimental de Gráfica. Organized as a cooperative, this workshop features the next generation of Cuban lithographers. There, we’ll observe the artists at work as they produce a wide variety of prints including full color lithographs of various sizes, as well as dynamic woodcuts. Often the work incorporates recognizable Cuban symbols and local themes.

Afterwards, it’s time to stretch our legs and experience the authentic Cuba that lies within Old Havana, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Our guided walking tour will take us to a variety of unique, Cuban cultural sites including several of Havana’s most important squares: Cathedral Square, Square of Arms, Plaza Vieja, and San Francisco Square.

During the afternoon walk, you’ll take in wonderful examples of Cuban architecture, such as the Cathedral of Havana, started in 1748 by the Jesuits, experience the Museum of the City located in the Palacio de los Capitanes Generales, where the colonial governors of Cuba once resided, and see one of the Caribbean’s oldest forts, the Castillo de la Real Fuerza, recently renovated into an impressive, maritime museum.

Before returning to the hotel, you’ll have free time to explore the delightful handicraft market of Old Havana. At the market, you’ll have the chance to purchase crafts and souvenirs that truly represent authentic Cuba.

Return to your private rental accomodation.

Evening: Even though is not included in the cost of our Cuba art tours, we always recommend going to the Gran Teatro de la Habana to enjoy a performance of the National Ballet of Cuba. (optional) Morning: The third day of your Cuban art travel begins with a return to Old Havana and a special tour of the Museum of Fine Arts’ Cuban Collection, housed in the beautiful Palacio de Bellas Artes—an added bonus for architectural buffs! The museum displays the largest collection of Cuban visual arts not only in Cuba but in the world.

The next stop in our Cuba art tours is Callejon de Hamel, a completely unique art installation located in the middle of a neighborhood. The heart of a Cuban cultural renaissance, Callejon de Hamel is the brainchild of Salvador Gonzales. Using local buildings as backdrops, his vibrant murals and evocative sculptures incorporate imagery from Cuba’s African heritage. You’ll also meet the artist, and have a chance to learn about his artistic inspirations and his hopes for the neighborhood.

One of the favorite highlights of Authentic Cuba Travel®’s Art Tour, Fusterlandia is the studio and residence of one of the most recognizable Cuban artists now working. Meeting the host of our luncheon, Jose Fuster, and seeing his work, is one of the many terrific reasons to get aboard with Authentic Cuba Travel®. A ceramicist, muralist, and painter, Mr. Fuster has garnered global attention for his highly original—and often whimsical—work.

Afternoon: We’ll delve deeper into the contemporary Cuban contemporary art scene with studio visits to some influential and highly regarded artists representing several generations and practicing in different media. These include Alicia Leal, a painter who often draws inspiration from myth and religion, and her husband Juan Moreira, whose latest work explores Cuba’s African roots.

Other memorable stops of our Cuba tours include visits with Juan Carlos Alom, an important experimental photographer, and the Britos’ Sisters. Yamilys is a highly respected, young printmaker, and her sister Jaqueline incorporates personal narrative themes into her paintings.

Return to your private rental accomodation.

Evening: Enjoy a beautiful view of the city at the Fortress of San Carlos de La Cabana as you experience a great and historic Havana tradition: Fire of the Cannon of 9 O'Clock. Morning: The day begins with a unique opportunity to see how Cuba cultivates its best, young, artistic talent. Cuba's National Art Schools (ISA) offers a comprehensive program much like an arts conservatory in the United States.

Talented students work with a faculty made up completely of professors who are working visual artists, art curators, or art critics. During the tour of the facility, you’ll actively engage both faculty and students, and learn from them about current directions in Cuban Art.

A new wave of paladares (private family-run restaurants) has recently swept the Cuban dining scene offering excellent food and charming ambient. Today we’ll enjoy lunch at the stylish Paladar Cafe Laurent at the penthouse terrace of a small 1950s apartment building.

Afternoon: Continuing on the theme of originality and contemporary directions in Cuban art, our Cuba tours visit some at one of the most up-to-date galleries, the Habana Art Gallery. Although it’s one of Cuba’s best known and longest operating galleries, it stays extremely current and showcases leading edge work from Cuban artists.

After our gallery visit, we’ll meet several more artists that are exceptional. Combining media, visual technique, and subject matter in unusual and fascinating ways, these include the self-taught and highly individualistic photographer Rene Pena, Lazaro Saavedra, who combines pictorial work with performances and video, and Jose Angel Toirac, a painter and installation "political" artist. Morning: Our first visit of the day is to the Wifredo Lam Center, named for the world-famous, Cuban, modernist painter.

In much the same way that Lam embraced a fusion of cultures, mythologies, themes and modernist techniques in his work, the Wifredo Lam Center promotes the contemporary art not only of Cuba, but also of other countries in the Caribbean and the developing world.

The Wifredo Lam Center is also responsible for turning all of Havana into a living art gallery during the Havana Art Biennial. While at the Center, you’ll have time to visit rotating exhibits of international work and Cuban art from the Biennial, and the permanent collection includes a number of important pieces by Wilfredo Lam.

Lunch: Enjoy your midday meal on your own at one of the many restaurants of Old Havana (not included). Your Authentic Cuba Travel® expert tour guide will help you doing bookings and recommending best eateries around.

Afternoon: Your art tour of Cuba continues with visits to some of Cuba's most prestigious art institutions including the Center for the Development of Visual Arts, the Fototeca de Cuba, and La Casona Gallery.

During the course of the afternoon, you’ll be exposed to a terrific overview of the recent trends in Cuban painting, photography, video, sculpture, and installation work as you view exhibits, meet artists, and speak with curators and gallery staff.

Return to your private rental accomodation. Morning: In our Cuba art tours, we celebrate the beginning of a new year with a refreshing visit to Las Terrazas Community, located in the mountains of Sierra del Rosario. This UNESCO Biosphere is a beautiful and unique region showcasing a combination of sustainable development with environmental preservation.

A place where you can enjoy hiking, bird watching, or just lounging around, you’ll get an orientation to the natural wonders of the area at the delightful village of Rancho Curujey.

We’ll do a little local sightseeing while also stopping in to meet local artists and artisans. But don’t forget your bathing suit, as we’ll also take a refreshing swim in the San Juan River.

Lunch will be at a local, traditional restaurant.

We’ll then continue to the Viñales Valley, where we’ll overnight at your Luxury Casa Particular.

Evening: celebrate New Year’s Eve at a venue of your choosing tonight (optional/ not included in tour costs). Your tour guide will give you advice on the numerous venues in the city where you can partake in the celebrations for New Year’s Eve. He will also help you book your favourite dinner and event. Vinales Valley is one of the most geologically striking areas on the island. It has dramatic cliffs, numerous caves, and mogotes, unusual hills with steep sides and rounded tops. Designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it is the pride and joy of the inhabitants of Western Cuba, and one of the most beautiful Cuban destinations to spend your last day in the Caribbean island.

Our tours to Cuba for Americans feature a delicious traditional lunch at the privately-owned bar-restaurant Paladar Yuri & Nino, El Campesino. Yuri is a young woman entrepreneur who started this small restaurant that has expanded into a large establishment. Yuri and her family work hard to create delicious and plentiful food that comes with a beautiful mountain view.

The Cueva del Indio is part of the largest system of subterranean caves in all of Latin America. The caves are the site of both Amerindian pictographs and burials. Indigenous people also used the caves, as well as runaway plantation slaves, as places to hide from Spanish colonialists.

An underground river runs through the caverns, and you’ll get to experience the cave during a trip by boat.

One the way to Viñales, you’ll view the “Mural de la Prehistoria,” a gigantic hillside painting commissioned by Fidel Castro, and painted by the artist Leovigildo Gonzalez Morillos in 1961.

In the afternoon, you’ll have free time to roam the delightful town of Viñales with its small wooden homes fronted by porches. You can shop at the stalls in the craft bazaar, people watch in the city park, visit the town church, or stroll the Viñales Botanical Garden. Early morning departure to Havana City International Airport for departure.