Fairly called "the Athens of Cuba", Matanzas is proud to bear that title having a population devoted to studying and creating.
Literature has a leading role in the context of local arts, being poetry its best artistic product. Local poetess Carilda Oliver Labra, having been awarded the national prize of literature, has become a true literary myth.
The city of Cárdenas had the privilege of waving, for the first time, the Cuban flag, to which poet Bonifacio Byrne devoted his poetry when arriving from exile after the independence war.
A city like Matanzas could not lack the historical recall, not even in the fascinating ambience of a world-famous beach like Varadero. There, the Museo Municipal de Historia offers replicas of the aboriginal pictography found in caves of the surrounding areas. Quite interesting are also the caves Los Musulmanes and Ambrosio, both being relevant as to archeological studies.
The Playa Girón museum offers testimony of the quest taking place in the province on April 1961 to defeat a mercenary invasion.Other museums constitute a source of knowledge of the history and culture of Matanzas: the Museo Farmacéutico, which polychromatic porcelain pieces are of great interest for visitors, and the Museo Oscar María de Rojas, where the struggle of Matanzas patriots is reflected.
There, the Museo Municipal de Historia offers replicas of the aboriginal pictography found in caves of the surrounding areas. Quite interesting are also the caves Los Musulmanes and Ambrosio, both being relevant as to archeological studies.
