2 Best Sights in Central Cuba, Cuba

If you can't be here during December for the annual holiday Parrandas celebrations, a visit to this interesting museum makes a nice consolation prize. The carnival-like parades punctuate Christmastime in Central Cuba, and Remedios does them up bigger and better than any city in the region. The city is divided into two neighborhoods—El Carmen and El Salvador—each of which creates its own floats, costumes, lanterns, and fireworks as part of an informal competition during the month-long festival that culminates on Christmas Eve. Though no winner is ever declared, most townspeople will tell you that not only does their neighborhood win every year, but the rest of Remedios isn't even good competition. The museum has photos, costumes, and floats from past Parrandas.

On the north side of Santa Clara, just across the Río Cubanicay, is the armored military train that was carrying soldiers and weapons that was derailed by Che Guevara and a group of rebels on the morning of December 28, 1958—a decisive moment in the Cuban Revolution. Guevara's troops went on to take the city, cutting Havana off from the eastern half of the country, which prompted dictator Fulgencio Batista's flight from Cuba and Castro's victory—all in a matter of days. Several train cars, some containing displays, lie in the grass next to the tracks in memory of that battle; the bulldozer used to destroy the tracks stands on a nearby cement slab.