The Plaza Mayor is the physical and symbolic heart of Trinidad, the square around which the UNESCO heritage town is organised. It is one of the best-preserved colonial squares in the Caribbean: the surrounding buildings — now turned into museums, a gallery, and a cultural centre — retain their original architecture and the paved square itself has been left largely as it was, with ornamental iron railings, ceramic urns, and tropical plantings.
Around the plaza stand the Palacio Brunet (the Romantic Museum), the Palacio Cantero (Municipal History Museum), the Iglesia de la Santísima Trinidad (Cuba's largest colonial church), and the Casa de los Sánchez Iznaga (Museum of Colonial Architecture). Walking a slow circuit of the square and looking up at the detail of the facades takes about half an hour and gives you a thorough sense of what the colonial aristocracy built here with sugar money.
Come early in the morning before the day-trip buses arrive from Varadero: the square is most itself when it belongs to local people going about their day, not when it is crowded with visitors.