LA ISABELICA

Declared a National Monument in 1991, the Isabelica has been a World Heritage Site since 2000. This former coffee plantation (60 hectares), founded by Victor Constantin Coussou, a French colonist exiled from Haiti at the end of the 18th century, is now home to a museum dedicated to the culture of coffee in Cuba. The latter had taken with him Isabel Maria, a Haitian slave with whom he decided to make a life. The name of the museum is a tribute to her.

A variety of old working tools and other utensils related to coffee cultivation and roasting are on display. The house is built in stone, in the manner of the seigneurial residences of the XVIIIth century in Haiti. Discover around the house, the terraces where the grain was dried and where the slaves danced on holidays, the water system, the mill and the solar clock. The last freed slave of the plantation, Seferina de Lys, died here in 1974, at the age of 134! The road to Gran Piedra passes by Tres Arroyos, Perseverancia and Siberia, three plantations that once belonged to French settlers. Exactly 61 of these plantations have been counted in the vicinity of the Gran Piedra, but only 12 have been researched.

A recommended visit for those who want to get a closer look at the reality of the Oriente in the past.