Trinidad's main draw is the town itself: the Plaza Mayor at its heart, surrounded by former sugar baron mansions turned into museums, and the cobblestoned streets radiating downhill through a neighbourhood of pastel-coloured colonial houses. The Museo Romántico in the Palacio Brunet on the Plaza Mayor displays the possessions of a wealthy 19th-century family with startling specificity — including a 1.5-tonne marble bath. The Convento de San Francisco tower is the town's most visible landmark and the view from the top, across the red tile rooftops and out to sea, is the best in Trinidad.
Beyond the colonial zone, the Casa de la Música on the outdoor staircase steps off the Plaza Mayor is one of Cuba's best live music venues — bands play salsa, son, and bolero under the sky most evenings. The Discoteca Ayala, a natural cave on the hill above town that has been a dance club for decades, is a genuinely singular experience: coloured lights, loud music, and the drip of a cave ceiling overhead.
Outside town: Playa Ancón is Cuba's best south-coast beach, 12 km away, with fine white sand and clear water. The Valle de los Ingenios — the Valley of the Sugar Mills — is the other UNESCO heritage site, spreading out to the east of Trinidad, where the ruins of nineteenth-century sugar plantations and the Manaca Iznaga Tower mark the era when this valley produced a large part of the world's sugar on the backs of enslaved people. Topes de Collantes national park in the Escambray Mountains is 20 km away and offers trails to waterfalls.