A Bird's Eye View of Camaguey

In this famed "Elegia camagueyana" poem Nicolas Guillen called this city, 700 km east of the capital, a "soft land of shepherds and sombreros." And indeed, when seen from the fifth floor of the Gran Hotel, which was for many years the tallest building in the city, the rambling vista of CamagOey's ancient church bell towers and red tiled roofs that slope in a single direction color the sober architecture, presenting more tranquil and smooth than other colonial cities.

CamagOey does not surrender its flavor of yesterday despite urban growth; while tall buildings multiply the city maintains its signature one tower temples, ubiquitous huge earthenware jars and homes with interior portals and fine·detailed ironwork windows that peek into soothing and shadowed patios. The historic area is a labyrinth; no street runs in a straight line for any distance but forks, turns, forms perfect triangles or encloses an unexpected plaza, like Bedoya, in a whimsical geometry.

The plaza of San Juan de Dios (1728) is a perfect example of an earlier period's urban complex containing: the glass and marble Principal Theater datin~ back to 1850, the 18th century Soledad church, the Cathedral and the Church of Mercy with its Holy Sepulcher made of 23,000 donated silver coins, the largest silverwork in Cuba. Facing the church is the birthplace of Ignacio Agramonte, "the Bayard of the Cuban Revolution" who died in combat in 1873.