Join Dr. Joseph Scarpaci, Director of the Center for the Cuban Culture and the Economy and author of Havana: Two Faces of the Antillean Metropolis as well as Cuban Landscapes: Heritage, Memory, and Place on this licensed program to Cuba. Spend five days exploring Havana and the surrounding area, which for almost four hundred years, was the main gateway for Spain’s vast American empire. It is a city of picturesque colonial streets and magnificent 20th-century architecture. Our program has been designed to unravel the richness of Cuban culture and to allow the group to meet professionals from all walks of contemporary Cuban life. 

The trip begins with a full morning walking tour along Old Havana’s narrow cobblestone streets with their colonial churches and elegant buildings. Small architectural details serve as reminders of the country’s former glory. Drive through Vedado and Miramar where one finds an enormously rich repository of 20th-century architecture with huge mansions and art deco buildings. Learn more about Cuban contemporary art at a cocktail reception at the Ludwig Foundation. The foundation attempts to promote Cuban artists and has its own collection of contemporary art.  The history of Cuban political development is well-illustrated at the Presidential Palace, now a museum, and a discussion with the economist Julio Carranza allows the group to focus on recent changes in Cuba’s economic polices. A special meeting with Carlos Alzuguray from the Institute of International Relations will provide an insight into Cuban foreign policy and will be an opportunity to answer leading questions about recent events in Cuba. Understand the American perspective on these issues at a special meeting at the U.S. Interest Section. See in the New Year with a special evening of celebrations at the Parque Central Hotel.

Drive east to Trinidad stopping en route at Cienfuegos and the Bay of Pigs. Spend two nights in Trinidad, Cuba’s oldest colonial city, surrounded by a verdant ring of mountains known as the Topes de Collantes. It is a town of iron windows and soft pastel-painted churches. Its colonial architecture is linked together by a grid of small squares and cobblestone streets.  In the center lies the main square ringed by four museums, all once the mansions of wealthy colonialists. Enjoy dinner in town at one of the newly opened private restaurants and a chance to stroll through the narrow stone streets and peer into the open shuttered doors of inviting homes. End the program with a final night in Havana with a farewell dinner at one of the city’s private restaurants – La Guarida – made famous in the film Fresas y Chocolate. Return to Miami from Havana. 

Joseph L. Scarpaci (Ph.D., Florida) is a broadly trained human geographer, with a regional focus in Cuba and the Southern Cone (the southern portion of South America). He specializes in Latin American studies, urban affairs and planning (particularly urban geography, Latin American studies and urban social movements) and urban social theory. He is Professor Emeritus of Geography and Urban Planning at Virginia Tech and is currently director of the Center for the Study of Cuban Culture and Economy.

Dr. Scarpaci holds degrees in Geography from Penn State (M.S.) and Rutgers University (B.A.). Since 1974, he has invested 82 months of field research in Latin America and has lectured at more than 60 universities, government agencies and international organizations. Dr. Scarpaci is co-author of a book with Cuban architects Mario Coyula and Roberto Segre, Havana: Two Faces of the Antillean Metropolis UNC Press, 2002) which earned an Outstanding Academic Choice Award and was acclaimed by Lingua Franca magazine as a “breakthrough urbanography.” In 2004 he published Plazas and Barrios: Heritage and Globalization in the Spanish American Centro and in 2009 he co-authored with Dr. Armando Portella, Cuban Landscapes: Heritage, Memory, and Place.

Dr. Scarpaci is the former Director of the Latin American Studies Program at Iowa and has earned research awards from the National Science Foundation, Fulbright and the National Institute of Health, among others. He has written and produced three videos on historic preservation and human rights in Chile. A native of Pittsburgh, Dr. Scarpaci has been to Cuba over 50 times since 1990.

Trip Dates
December 28, 2011 - January 4, 2012

Trip Length : 8 days

Trip Price : $3,440

Single Room Supplement : $590

Max Group Size : 25 people