3 Best Sights in Cuba

Covering 35,000 square meters, this hillside botanical garden is a wild tangle of flowering vines, fragrant gingers, waist-high begonias and epiphyte-laden trees growing out of rocks. The centerpiece is a tidy greenhouse filled with blooming orchids. Back in the 1940s, a wealthy Havana lawyer and orchid fancier hired a Japanese gardener to design this glorious garden in his daughter's memory. Stone pathways bordered by plant-covered rocky outcroppings wind uphill to a lookout. The footing is a little precarious and the garden is quite wild, but beautiful. Birds abound, so be sure to bring along binoculars. The garden is also a study center for budding botanists and there is an expert guide on hand.

East of town lie Cienfuegos's expansive botanical gardens covering 94 hectares (232 acres) and containing more than 2,000 plant species, most of which are not native to Cuba. Created at the turn of the last century by U.S. sugar farmer Edwin Atkins, the garden was administered by Harvard University until 1961, when it was taken over by the Cuban Academy of Science. It includes palms, bamboos, and other tropical trees as well as medicinal plants and a forest reserve that's home to many native animals. Signage could be better here; a guide can point out what you're seeing, although not all speak English.

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