Explore Cuban arts and architecture! Visit artists in their home studios and discuss how changes in Cuba affect the arts. We’ll travel from Havana to Cienfuegos & Trinidad, exploring areas east and/or west of the city.

Welcome to Havana!

- Hotel Capri check-in.

- Cocktails at Hotel Nacional,

- Dinner at San Cristobal,

- Jazz club or Hotel Nacional.

- Tour the Museum of Fine Arts Cuba Collection with a docent,

- Walking tour of Plaza Vieja: Fototeca, Provincial Art Center, - Camera Oscura, Diago Gallery (folk art)

- Visit Clandestina, a cultural hot spot and local independent shop for original designs,

- Dinner at Tierra, inside the Art Factory, with a tour of the Art Factory for dessert.

We visit artists in their homes and studios, including, (schedules permitting) Manuel Mendive, Roberto Diago, Eduardo Roca (Choco), Toirac, Roció García, Glenda Leon, Mabel Poblet, Kcho, Luis R Camejo, Abel Barroso, José Fuster, Kadur López, Los Carpinteros, Sandra Ceballos, Ernesto Javier, The Merger, in Havana; Adrian Rumbaut, Camilo Villalvilla, Copperi, Alain Moreira in Cienfuegos, Yudit Vidal Faife, Jorge Cesar Sáenz, Carlos Cesar Roman in Trinidad (where Diago also has a home and gallery).

- We travel west of Havana one hour and tour Las Terrazas planned community, visit artists, hear music.

- Lunch at Casa de Campesino with music by El Grupo de Polo.

- Visit the Orchid Garden, a tribute by a Spanish businessman working in Cuba to his teenage daughter who died.

- Return to Havana.

- Plaza de Armas for book & poster sellers, stroll down Obispo Street to see new private businesses and restaurants.

- Home visit with Pepe Viera, former diplomat and vice-minister of foreign affairs, lawyer and investments adviser, and his wife Cecilia Bermudez, who worked with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who can answer almost any question about what’s happening in Cuba today!

- Travel to Jaimanitas to visit artist José Fuster, where we’ll have lunch and tour Fuster’s sculpture and ceramics that adorn the entire town.

- Visit painter Jorge Perugorria (also Cuba’s best-known actor), Sandra Dooley and Guillermo Estrada-Viera in the town of Santa Fe. Sandra is a self-taught painter and printmaker; Guillermo is a trained sculptor, painter and printmaker.

- Punta Gorda architecture tour

- Lunch at Casa Verde

- Check into the Hotel Jagua, return to the city center

- Visit the Maroya Gallery in the town’s center, artists and the CCS Down syndrome printmaking project at the Print Workshop.

- Hotel for R&R

- Dinner at Villa Lagarto, an excellent water-side paladar

- Meet artists at the House of Young Artists to hear music, see art by members of the Hermanos Saiz group, including Jorge Cesar Sainz and Cesar Roman.

- Visit the home studio of artist Yudit Vidal Faife and the Benito Ortiz Gallery and Santander ceramics workshop where this family has made pottery for more than a hundred years, followed by a visit to the beautiful ceramics shop of painter Alejandro López Bastida to talk with the artist about his current art projects.

- Stop by the workshop of silversmith Orbein Licor, and walk through the Trinidad street markets, famous for the lovely embroidered clothes, tablecloths, etc.

Guided tour of the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA), the graduate art school, famed for its architecture and its graduates. (We'll screen the 2011 documentary about the school called “Unfinished Spaces” inviting Roberto Gottardi, one of the three architects featured in the film, to speak with us.)

- Visit the Music School and the Visual Arts School.

- Visit the studio of artist Kcho and the community project he started in Romerillo, the poor neighborhood next to ISA.

- Visit artist studios including that of Los Carpinteros.

Farewell dinner at one of Cuba’s first and best paladars, La Esperanza in Miramar.

Buen viaje!