By: Umbrella Travel

 

The eastern city of Baracoa is an imperative for the traveler who picks up the biggest island of the West Indies as a vacation site. Baracoa turns out to be the first city founded by the Spanish colonists on their arrival in the American continent. Besides the colonial reminiscences present in its architecture and city planning, the many merits of its peculiar geographic features and of many plant and animal species populating its surroundings are well appreciated.

Baracoa is surrounded by mountain massifs, decorated by luxuriant vegetation, virgin forests brimming with endemic flora and fauna, crystal-clear rivers and beaches enveloped by almond trees and coconut palms which make it stand out from the rest of the country. This little village was founded by Don Diego Velázquez in 1511 when the Spanish started the colonization of Cuba after its discovery on Admiral Christopher Columbus´s first trip in 1492.

However, these are not the only allurements of Baracoa: there, in the inside of its parochial church, the so-called Cruz de Parra (Vine Cross) is being preserved.

It is in the first period of the conquest, at the time of the organization tasks involved in the foundation and evangelization of the area that Velazquez´s troops find a cross covered by the undergrowth typical of the area, a discovery which was taken at the time as a divine signal showing heavenly approval of the missions assigned to the Spanish on conquered land.

It was later known that after December the first, 1492, on his first trip, Christopher Columbus had driven the religious sign into the ground at the entrance of Baracoa bay, as he later did in other twenty nine American spots where he set feet on in his endeavor as land discoverer. The Baracoa cross is the only one now preserved , thanks to the devotion and faith with which the residents of the town took care of it for five centuries, and the zeal shown by the Cuban state in the preservation of the religious object considered as the oldest religious relic embodying the history of the encounter of two cultures.

Originally seven feet high, the cross was mutilated gradually through the times, as different personalities of the Cuban colonial society requested a little piece of it as a good luck charm every time they visited the town. This went on until it was silver-plated all around its edges in the 18th century, in an attempt to circumvent the fatal destiny foretold for the cross. As a result of this depredation, nowadays only a little more than one meter out of its original length is being preserved.

The authenticity of the Vine Cross of Baracoa, who was questioned long ago, has been ascertained due to the scientific efforts of a number of national and international researchers, who have taken samples of it to North- American laboratories and submitted them to Carbon 14 tests.

The results of this research showed that the wood used for the cross dates back to the years 860 through 1530, with a degree of accuracy of 95%. The cellular structure which the Vine Cross was made of corresponds to the one of the Coccoloba Diversifolia, commonly known as Uvilla, of the type that can still be spotted in the easternmost region of Cuba, which proved that Columbus did not bring the emblem on his trip, but that it was made with wood from Baracoa.

Obviously, it is a fact that the Vine Cross constitutes the oldest monument to the presence of Christopher Columbus in all America.

By: Umbrella Travel

 

Xanadu was the name of the wonderful palace where Kubla Khan dwelled, the mythic emperor who got to conquer China, Great Wall and all, thanks to his qualities as a warrior. Xanadu was also, according to recorded history, the ancient Kingdom of Tartars, extending all through Central and Western Asia and part of Russia. More recently, the name became famous again because of the success of film Citizen Kane, the silver-screen master piece that brilliant Orson Wells bequeathed to posterity, whose protagonist called the huge castle where he would spend the rest of his life Xanadu.

At present, when we travel to the famous Varadero Beach, the name Xanadu adopts a different meaning, or maybe all the meanings stated before, since this name is given to an impressive mansion located at Varadero´s highest hill, in competition with all its predecessors in respect to oddities.

Sun, sea and white sand go hand by hand in Varadero Beach resort, the most famous of the many that can be found on the Island, endowed with many attractions for those who decide to spend their vacations in Cuba.

The practice of golf is one of the most recent offers of “the Blue Beach”. The Varadero Golf Club expands the possibilities of the greatest of the Antilles in respect to this category, a combination of sport and relaxation which is in such great demand in the tourism industry worldwide. The facilities include an extensive 18-hole course whose architecture, making excellent use of the features of the terrain, turns it into one of the most beautiful in Latin America –maybe one of the most peculiar in the whole world, since the players have the sea as their witness on both sides of the round. They are flanked by Varadero Beach on one side, by Cardenas bay on the other.

The course supplements itself with the Club House, the ideal place for the players’ meeting after the game, called Xanadu Mansion.

The beginning of the property is linked to the figure of the US multi-millionaire of French origin Irenee Dupont, who acquired the land where the building would be erected in 1927. The construction´s design was commissioned to a pair of architects: the Govantes- Cabarrocas, ones of the most prestigious at the time.

The house, with eleven bedrooms and the same number of bathrooms, was added three galleries, seven balconies and a private wharf. Precious woods such as mahogany, cedar, “jiqui” and “sabicu” were used in the interior and exterior decoration, in harmonious blend with Cuban, Spanish and Italian marbles. The initial cost was $400, 000 besides the 200, 000 spent in furniture and other interior ornaments.
Although the Xanadu Mansion was designed by well-known architects, to whom we are indebted for other emblematic constructions of the Cuban engineering, the Varadero Beach Xanadu mansion is not obviously related to other edifices in the Island. It could be said to be the embodiment of eclecticism, a conglomerate of elements from “here and there”, of ideas that seem to have been generated not by the designers, but by Dupont himself and by his way of understanding architecture from the American point of view.

So much so that even though it is located in a tropical environment, the main hall on the main floor displays a full-fledged stove necessarily a useless extravagance considering the climate we enjoy in Cuba in every season of the year. Towards 1932 Dupont installed an organ in the house, considered the largest positioned in a private residence in the whole Latin America, worth nearly 110,000 $ at the time. It worked automatically but could also be operated by hand. The musical instrument is still in good working order and can be heard from the first to the third floor of the house by means of a complex network of tubes.

The Varadero Xanadu was formerly used differently, since from the mid sixties to the nineties of the 20th century it accommodated one of the most luxurious restaurants in the beach resort.

The golf court that Dupont provided his residence with was equipped with only a ten-hole round, which remained so until the mid nineties, when it was enlarged to be adapted to this sport´s official distances, in view of the updating of the tourist industry in Cuba.
Nowadays, the imposing mansion neighboring the great Hotel Melia Las Americas awaits travelers, metamorphosed as the Club House, where drinks of the utmost diverse brands and origins can be flavored.
First-class Cuban wines, as well as French, Italian, Spanish, and Chilean –among others, await the arrival of wine aficionados in excellent state of conservation. The list includes the Chateau Laroque, Barbaresco, Santa Cristina, Faustino V, Marques de Arienzo and CrozesErmitage, just to mention a few.
Furthermore, la Mansión provides banquet services for incentive groups, weddings and other receptions, as well as facilities for meetings of executives in the business world.