Matanzas:
A Europian Cuban City

Some hundred kilometers to the east of Havana, next to a calm waters bay and settled on undulating hills crossed by three rivers, lies Matanzas. Named after the province where is to be found, this slow and horizontal town is wrapped in a bluish fog specially at dawn.

Because of its bridges, it is called the Cuban Venice and being a land of poets, it is also known as the Cuban Athens. Here spent his youth Cuban writer José María Heredia, first romantic poet of the Spanish language. Other important writers such as José Jacinto Milanés, Bonifacio Byrne, Agustín Acosta and Carilda Oliver Labra were also born in Matanzas.

This city also provided its contribution in music. It is the main site for rumba and the cradle of danzon - national Cuban dance - and danzonete. Among illustrious Matanzas' musicians are José White, a noteworthy composer and genius violinist who conquered the Allard department in the Conservatoire de Paris; Nilo Menéndez and Frank Domínguez, both of the filin movement and Dámaso Pérez Prado, the immortal creator of Mambo, one of the greatest of Cuban music.

In the origins of Matanzas are thirty colonists coming from the Canary Islands who founded the city in 1693. Later in the 18th Century, French emigration added an important boost to the settlement. Sugar was the main economic item in the 19th Century and its port allowed a rather intense exchange with foreign lands.

Matanzas then became a cult and rich city, the most prosperous one inland. It welcomed such important personalities as Fanny Elssler, Anna Pavlova, Sarah Bernhardt and Adelina Patti, the best soprano of all times. Among royalty there was the visit of Louis-Philippe of Orleans, future king of France.