Cuba - Lonely Planet [233]
Turning left on Pancho Jiménez you come to the Museo de Arte Colonial ( 2-5455; Plácido Sur No 74; admission CUC$2; 9am-5pm Tue-Sat, 8am-noon Sun), with 19th-century furniture and decorations displayed in an imposing 17th-century building that once belonged to the sugar-rich Valle-Iznaga family. Further up the hill is the verging-on-decrepit Iglesia Parroquial Mayor del Espíritu Santo (Agramonte Oeste No 58; 9-11am & 2-5pm Tue-Sat). Originally constructed of wood in 1522 and rebuilt in stone in 1680, it’s said to be the oldest church in Cuba still standing on its original foundations (although the clock seems to have given out in recent years). While the interior isn’t particularly interesting, locals are proud of this place and the best time to peek is during Sunday morning Mass.
Formerly known as Plaza de Jesús, tiny Plaza Honorato was where the Spanish authorities once conducted grisly public hangings. Later on it hosted a produce market and scruffy peso stalls still line the small connecting lane to the east.
Independencia Sur, the city’s newly revived shopping mall, is traffic-free and lined with statues, sculptures and myriad curiosity shops. Check out the junk store/antiques den Casa de Comisiones and catch a glimpse of the opulent Colonia Española Building, once a whites-only gentlemen’s club. The Galería de Arte (Céspedes Sur No 26; admission free; 8am-noon & 2-5pm Tue-Sat, 8am-noon Sun), next to the agropecuario (vegetable market; enter via Independencia Sur), houses numerous works by local painter Oscar Fernández Morera (1890–1946).
While not Cuba’s shadiest or most atmospheric square, pretty Parque Serafín Sánchez is full of understated Sancti Spíritus elegance. Metal chairs laid out inside the pedestrianized central domain are usually commandeered by cigar-smoking grandpas and flirty young couples with their sights set on some ebullient local nightlife. There’s plenty to whet the appetite on the square’s south side where the impressive Casa de la Cultura often exports its music onto the street. Next door the columned Hellenic beauty that today serves as the Biblioteca Provincial Rubén Martínez Villena was built originally in 1929 by the Progress Society. Sport and coins make improbable bedfellows in the obligatory Museo Provincial (Máximo Gómez Norte No 3; admission CUC$1; 9am-6pm Mon-Thu, 9am-6pm & 8-10pm Sat, 8am-noon Sun) on Parque Serafín Sánchez, which might appeal to numismatically minded baseball fanatics, but few others. Nearby, the Museo de Ciencias Naturales ( 2-6365; Máximo Gómez Sur No 2; admission CUC$1; 8:30am-5pm Tue-Fri, 8-10pm Sat, 8:30am-noon Sun), off Parque Serafín Sánchez, has a stuffed crocodile that will scare your three-year-old and some shiny rock collections.
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THE GUAYABERA
No Mexican beach wedding would be complete without one, but according to popular legend, the guayabera shirt originated not in Puerto Vallarta, but in Sancti Spíritus in the late 1800s where people who lived close to the Yayabo River were known colloquially as Yayaberos. Crafting comfortable work-shirts for their menfolk to wear out in the fields, the local women took to calling their deftly sewn homemade garments guayaberas when their husbands started coming home with their pockets full of guayabas (guavas).
With its distinctive alforzas (pleats) and rustic retro elegance, the guayabera’s popularity quickly spread and by the 1880s it was being worn at official events in towns and cities throughout the Sancti Spíritus area. By the early 20th century the guayabera had arrived in Havana and, in the mid-1940s, the