The Vinales Valley - A UNESCO World Heritage Site

Just a few hours from Havana, Viñales Valley is a unique landscape surrounded by hills with vertical sides and rounded tops, called mogotes (pin-cushion hills) and surrounded by a lovely valley with rich, red earth tones and majestic palm trees in the Pinar del Río province. This is one of Cuba’s most fertile areas and where some of the world’s best tobacco is grown, harvested, dried and processed.

Viñales Valley is one of the best-known areas of Cuba, and in the late 1900s, it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site. The valley is also a national monument. Its beauty and size, 132 square km (51 square miles), make it the most outstanding example of karst valleys in Cuba.

The first stop of your tour will be at the Guayabita del Pinar rum factory, where you will have the opportunity to taste a special rum flavored with the fruits of wild guayabas (guavas). This small species of guavas grows only in the mountains of Pinar del Rio. Hence the name Guayabita del Pinar.

Then it’s off to visit a cigar plantation where you will learn about the production of Vegueros cigars. As it is tradition in this region of Cuba, the vegueros (farmers) make their own cigars. As a result of this tradition, in 1996, the Vegueros brand was introduced to the market as a tribute to the countless generations that have cultivated tobacco in Pinar del Rio.

You will then enjoy lunch at a traditional Cuban restaurant.

After lunch, you will visit the Mural de la Pre-Historia, a120-meter-tall replica of prehistoric paintings on a mogote. Afterwards, you will return to the pier.