Located in the Sierra de los Órganos just 25 km away from the provincial capital and 178 km from Havana, this has become one of the most renowned Cuban tourist sites worldwide, acclaimed for its sheer beauty by the hundreds of thousands of visitors it now traditionally welcomes every year, who never cease to marvel at the natural scenery on display.
It is an expansive valley of 741 square kilometers adorned by singular elevations of karstic origin called mogotes (flat-topped hummocks or buttes) that adopt a great variety of forms. The existing diversity in shades of green is always a highlight for those arriving at the vantage points to gaze out onto the valley from on high.
Inside the mogotes there are a fair amount of grottos, some quite extensive while perfectly safe to tour with the assistance of guides well versed in the intricacies of the tracks.
The Cave of the Indian with the boat tour along its subterranean river, and the Prehistoric Mural make for some of the sites most visited by tourists.
The Viñales Valley was declared Natural Heritage of Humanity by Unesco in December 1999.