After breakfast at the hotel, we’ll hit the twisting lanes of UNESCO-listed Old Havana. The tour will take us to old plazas where the cobbles have been polished to a shine by footfall and to centuries-old churches. We’ll also visit a local gym where you can turn your lens on the determined young athletes training in the art of boxing – Cuba’s second favorite sport. Participants will also get the chance to learn about a restoration project currently underway in Old Havana, which aims to preserve the resplendent historic buildings through traditional handcraft methods.

The focus will then shift to Cuba’s photography scene as we are welcomed at the Fototeca, a leading photographic guild, by director Nelson Ramirez, who was recently selected to represent Cuba at the Venice Biennale. Learn about the challenges that Cuban artists and photographers have to contend with, from government censorship to restricted internet access.

After eating lunch at the Mercaderes paladar, a privately owned restaurant that is commonly said to be among the best in the city, it’s back out onto the streets of Old Havana for more exploring, followed by an optional visit to the Taller de Grafica Experimental, an institution dedicated to graphic arts.

Upon return, participants will meet to discuss their photographic goals and objectives. We’ll then be picked up by classic car and taken to the privately run Rio Mar restaurant, which serves up straight-from-the-sea delicacies on its ocean-view terrace. Should you wish, you can continue on to a bohemian club to listen to live jazz-influenced boleros and trova music.

After breakfast, we’ll take a ferry out to the waterfront Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de Regla. This church is for the followers of Santeria, a syncretic religion that blends elements of Catholicism with the aspects of African Yoruba mythology, and is famous for its depiction of the Black Madonna. While here, we’ll get to witness and photograph a fascinating Santeria ritual.
Next, we’ll survey the funerary jewels of the Christopher Colón Cemetery, a vast graveyard containing ornate mausoleums, vaults and military tributes.

Continue your photographic adventure, as you have the opportunity to to mingle with locals and learn about an art and music-focused community project run by Salvador Gonzales and his team. You can even enjoy dancing the “Domingo de la Rumba.”

After lunch at one of Havana’s best paladars, VIP Habana, we’ll venture to the district of Jaimanitas to see the work of Cuban artist José Fuster, whose colorful and whimsical murals cover more than 80 houses in the neighborhood.

Back at the hotel, you’ll have time to edit your photographs before dinner at a place of your choosing and, if you’re feeling energetic, enjoy some post-dinner dancing at the legendary Havana Café too.

Our Cuban journey continues today with a visit to a day care center for children of single, often teenage, mothers. From there, it is on to the Instituto Superior de Arte, the city’s premier arts school.

After lunch at El Templete, located on the Malecon, we’ll stop by the Centro Pro Danza, a dance school whose talented alumni have become known around the world. You will also get the chance to speak with the dancers and hear their stories.)

You’ll have the opportunity to meet members of a local Cuban art collective Muraleando, who run art workshops as well as community-focused events, which act as a platform for local artists, dancers, poets and singers. After, shop at a local arts and crafts market where you can buy handcrafted souvenirs from the artisans who made them.

Linger over dinner in famed Rejoneo palador, which is known for its excellent grilled cuisine, before returning to our historic hotel in downtown Cuba.

After breakfast, we’ll set out for a 2.5-hour drive to Valle de Viñales, considered by many to be the most beautiful place in Cuba. With its red soil, lush green tobacco plantations and hulking limestone outcrops, this stunning UNESCO-listed landscape begs to be captured on camera. The valley is famous for its tobacco growing plantations, which yield some of the best tobacco in the world. A local guide will show us around, introducing us to tobacco farm workers and leading us around a private finca (farm), where we’ll be granted access to places that very few tourists ever see. With the wonderfully contrasting colors of the rusty soil and deep green crops, and the sheer karst hillocks rising in the background, this whole region is a photographer’s paradise.

Lunch at the farm will be followed by even more local interaction. This time, we’ll chat with members of a state-owned farming cooperative, El Moncada, to find out more about the practice of Communist crop growing, before visiting a nearby bodega.

Stay overnight in the three-star Hotel La Ermita in Pinar del Río, which promises dramatic valley vistas and an open-air bar that is perfect for sipping sundowners.

Today our journey will take us to a local farm that produces fruits, vegetables and grains as well as tobacco. The owners will show us around their 40-acre land, which has been in the same family for generations, before everyone tucks into a homemade meal back at the farmhouse; where we will be joined by other members of the local community. Then it’s on to a despalillo (stripping house) to learn about how tobacco leaves are prepared for use in cigars.

The afternoon is yours to do as you please. You might want to wander Viñales town center, shop at the arts and crafts market, go hiking, or even trek through the valley on horseback.

This morning, you will have time to edit your photographs before sitting down with the group to review your work so far. Magdalena will answer any questions you may have, as well as offering feedback and guidance, and suggesting tips to help improve your photography. Eat lunch together then embark on a five-hour drive to Cienfuegos, a thriving oceanfront city where French flavor and Caribbean soul collide. We’ll stay overnight here in a boutique, colonial-style hotel called Encanto Casa Verde. The intimate eight-room hotel is set in a historic, early 20th century building, which was renovated as part of a project designed to save buildings of cultural and architectural significance by converting them into small hotels.

Embark on a whistle-stop tour of Cienfuegos, ticking off all the most important sights in its UNESCO-listed center including the Government Palace and the 19th-century Santa Iglesia Catedral de la Purísima Concepción. Work off lunch with a stroll in the city’s botanic garden, where a whopping 2,000 species of plants, including some 280 types of palms, grow.

Later that afternoon, we’ll arrive in Trinidad. It is hard to resist photographing this time-warp Spanish colonial settlement, where it seems almost nothing has changed since its 19th century heyday.

Enjoy a walking tour around Trinidad’s UNESCO-listed streets, which are lined with grand, red-roofed colonial buildings, most of which were built during the city’s sugar-producing heyday in the 19th century. When the sugar industry began to decline during the latter half of the 19th century, the lavish colonial construction projects ceased. During our tour, we’ll see the central Plaza Mayor, and its cathedral – the largest in Cuba. We’ll also explore cultural institutions such as the Museo Romantico, which houses a vast collection of precious porcelain, glass, paintings, and furniture. Participants with a head for heights can climb up the tower at the Antiguo Convento de San Francisco de Asis and enjoy views out over the countless colonial mansions of the city.

Next, we will drive out of town to the Valle de los Ingenios (Valley of the Sugar Mills), the former center of Cuba’s once lucrative, slave-driven sugar industry. Lunch will be at the Manaca Iznaga Plantation, where original features from the site’s sugar-producing heyday, including the owner’s house (which has now been converted into an excellent restaurant) and old slave quarters, still survive.

We will explore the old ruins of haciendas and visit families living in the large estates of former plantations, which have been converted into multi-family dwellings.

This evening, you’ll be free to do as you please so you can enjoy dinner, and perhaps some live music, at your leisure.

After another group photography review session, we’ll head back out on the road to Sancti Spíritus, a little-known but wonderfully photogenic city that ranks high in the colonial charm stakes. Discover a palatial mansion that was once owned by the elite Valle Iznaga family, which is beautifully adorned with stunning furniture – including a Cuban smoking chair, a mid-18th century American piano, Italian marble tables and Baccarat crystal chandeliers – and spectacular, original paintings. We’ll also visit the majestic colonial home and exhibition space Museo de Arte Colonial (the Colonial Art Museum).

After the mansion, we check into our own swish accommodation; the lovely neoclassical-style Hotel Del Rijo, complete with 16 spacious double rooms with high beamed ceilings and marble bathrooms.

In the evening, the group will get together for a final farewell dinner. Dine on sumptuous dishes that blend Spanish and Cuban flavors in Meson de la Plaza, a beautiful wooden-ceilinged colonial house turned restaurant. Later on, we’ll toast the end of trip with a glass or two of sublime Cuban sangria.

After being transferred to Santa Clara, we will enjoy one last lunch together. You will then be transferred to Abel Santamaria International Airport in Santa Clara to catch your return flight back to Miami/New York.