Travel To Cuba Is Under The OFAC Category Educational People To People License.

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St. Augustine Historian & Tour Guide Bernadette Reeves - Ms B
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CUBA


Agenda For 2017 Trip To St. Augustine FL & CUBA
Boston - St. Augustine, Florida - Havana, Cuba
8 Days - 7 Nights
Friday June 23rd through Friday June 30, 2017
(Schedule subject to change)
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Carole will help you find a roommate for the trip.


**Cuba Daylight Time (CDT) is the same as Boston's Eastern Daylight Time.
Roundtrip Flight on both commercial AND charter airlines.


Friday June 23  DAY ONE 
Leave Boston Logan Airport bound for Jacksonville Airport. Board Air Conditioned Motor Coach for one hour ride to St. Augustine, Florida.
Check into your hotel room and choose from the following exciting afternoon options:
--Enjoy a shopping experience at the nearby St. Augustine Outlet Malls
OR...
--Tour The San Sebastian Winery  After the tour, guests are given a chance to sample wide variety of delicious San Sebastian premium wines.

That evening join the entire group and enjoy a delicious dinner at ever popular Columbia Restaurant, a Spanish/Cuban establishment located in the St. Augustine Historic District and home of the "1905 Salad."

During dinner you'll enjoy a delightful historical One Woman Performance by Bernadette Reeves, historian, tour guide and actor...otherwise known as "Ms B."

Saturday June 24 DAY TWO 
After breakfast in the hotel, we'll start the day early where the route to freedom began with those courageous African Americans escaping slavery in the early 1700s: Fort Mose.
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Fort Mose (pronounced Mo-zay) fortress was the northernmost garrison for St. Augustine. It is noteworthy as the first freed black settlement in colonial America and was established in 1738 as Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose. This tour will allow you to overlook the salt marsh to where the fort was located, and hear triumphant tales of these slaves flight to freedom. As you walk in the footsteps of where these soldiers and their families lived, it transports the imagination to a time long past.

After East Florida was ceded to the British in the Peace of Paris of 1763, most of the free black inhabitants migrated to Cuba with the evacuating Spanish settlers. At that time, the black population at St. Augustine and Fort Mose totaled about 3,000, of whom about one-quarter were free.

 Our trip traces the historic route from St. Augustine to Cuba throughout our journey.
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Your tour continues with Lincolnville and the Civil Rights Train Tour 
Your privately chartered tour starts at the Visitor Information Center where you’ll learn what happened here during the Civil Rights movement. Next you will journey into Lincolnville, which is now on the National Register of Historic Place. As we enter Lincolnville you’ll see the Civil Rights Museum and St. Paul’s AME Church where Dr. Martin Luther King preached. After this tour you will understand why St. Augustine was one of the leading battlefields of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s.
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Stop For Lunch At the Corazon Cinema and Café
The Corazon is a neat little theater, comfy, great décor, friendly staff, and good food. You can relax and sit back and watch a movie while you enjoy eating your lunch. In this quaint movie theater and café, you will be served a wrap sandwich, a beverage, and fresh popcorn cooked in coconut oil. 
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Complete your tour of St. Augustine at the Civil Rights Museum
 In recognition of extraordinary contributions to the advancement of the Civil Rights movement and through the boundless courage, strength and bravery for equality, dignity and human rights we invite you to join us in a 1 hour long tour of the Civil Rights Museum.
 Come and hear the heroic stories of the great hero’s of the 1960’s, and read about and see a movie that will leave you with a greater understanding of the African American citizens in St. Augustine. 
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To top off the evening, you'll join the group for dinner at Aunt Kates.
​Continuing over 100 years of serving the finest in local seafood, Aunt Kate’s pleasures both the eye and the palate. Situated in a grove of live oaks on the bank of the Tolomoto River, you can dine on the outside decks under the trees or inside in either the main dining room or the Victory bar. It's a seafood eatery with water views & an eclectic menu including smoked fish dip & fried alligator tail.

Sunday June 25 DAY THREE

After breakfast in the hotel, we start early for our motorcoach ride down to Miami, Florida. Once we check into the hotel, we'll be driven to our Miami Welcome Reception at N'Namdi Contemporary Art Gallery, located in one of the hottest parts of the city.
Continuing to forge ahead, Detroit native Jumaane N'Namdi opened the N’Namdi Contemporary Miami and N’Namdi Contemporary Chicago. He continues to uphold the artistic standards of the master artists he has exhibited in the past, while expanding the gallery’s roster and making N’Namdi Contemporary a home for renowned cutting edge international artists. His clients include Tina Knowles, the mother of international recording artist Beyonce. 

You're free for the evening. Get a good rest and get ready to catch your flight to Cuba in the morning!

Monday June 26 DAY FOUR
After breakfast in the hotel, you'll be shuttled to Miami International Airport for your chartered flight to Havana, Cuba.
Arrival at José Martí International Airport in Havana where guests will be welcomed by the Agency’s guide. Transfer from the airport to the Hotel in Havana 4*.
In the evening it’s the perfect time to visit La Cabaña; one of the three fortresses near the Castillo de la Real Fuerza y la Punta. There is a nightly ritual regarding the closure of the city wall surrounding Havana since the 17th century.  The cannons go off at 9 p.m.  At the end of the ceremony, tour the historic site, peruse the artisans and purchase souvenirs. Dinner at El Templete. Return to the hotel.
Meals Included: Dinner

Tuesday June 27 DAY FIVE
After breakfast, you will be picked up at the hotel and taken to the historic area of Havana, designated as a World Heritage site since November, 1979. The tour will begin at the Templete, a magnificent symbolic neoclassical building. First, the Plaza de Armas; later, the Plaza of St. Francis of Assisi, then the Plaza Vieja where the Escorial Café is located, and where we will have a tasting. During the tour, the guide will describe the history of restored buildings and streets that have existed for 495 years. Next, visit the Cathedral Square and a screen printing workshop with a panoramic view of the Callejón del Chorro.  This place has been a center of experimentation for several generations of artists in the country.  Opened in 1962, it has an exhibition space to promote and sell the works of local masters. You will be able to interact with the workers and artists. When finished, we will have lunch at a local restaurant.

Following lunch, tour through the main streets of Miramar, to the West of the city.
Urbanization had spread according to the interests of the richest of the rich. They exerted their influence, displacing those poorer structures which were snuggled up next to mansions and luxury buildings. The development of old Havana was moving outwards toward more remote areas near the sea shore, to neighborhoods like Siboney and Atabey. This city was …"gentle, somewhat Spanish, indolently lying on the shores of the blue sea just like those in all of the legends, it was converted in a fairly short time period into a city that was surprisingly active, advanced, with an incipient cosmopolitan character" (Alejo Carpentier, “La Habana Moderna”, Libro de Cuba, La Habana, 1925, p. 471).
Return to the hotel.

After dinner at Otra Manera, transfer to the YeIlow Submarine, a suitable place to meet Cuban musicians who play a retro repertoire in the style of classic rock bands. Transfer to the hotel.

Wednesday June 28 DAY SIX
After breakfast at the hotel, transfer to the Cafetal Angerona. The ruins of the coffee plantations are located in the province of Artemisa. Its owner was a German immigrant, Cornelio Souchay, who acquired the land in 1813. Cornelio Souchay had come to Cuba in the early nineteenth century. While in Havana he met Ursula Lambert, a freeborn Haitian who had also reached the largest Caribbean Island with her parents and settler Lambert, running away from the war produced by the revolution in Haiti. In 1815 Ursula began working with Cornelio, and in 1822 reached Angerona. Both shared economic, financial and organizational interests of the coffee plantation. The rumors are, despite the social and racial prejudices of the time, they lived an intense love, but this part of the story is only a legend.
 
With her hard work, Ursula contributes to the development of the coffee plantation. Since Cornelio trusted her, she dealt with the economy of the hacienda and taught the slaves needlework and domestic work. Because of her initiatives, the nursing and criollitos house was built, where children were given special attention to grow healthy and strong. She also installed inside the coffee plantation shops, where she sold guano, clay and fabrics items. 
Lunch at Rancho Palco and return to the hotel.
 
At night, transfer to the Paladar Rio Mar. After dinner transfer to Sloppy Joe’s bar in Havana to try their signature cocktail.
 
Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

Thursday June 28 DAY SEVEN
Pick up at the hotel after breakfast. Transfer to Matanzas City to visit the Slave’s Route Museum and the San Severino Castle. This museum is part of a project that has the goal to show to the world the phenomenon of the slave trade. The Castle itself (where the museum is located) is one of the greatest constructions in the city and a well preserved witness of the local history. Built as part of a military defense system, the construction works started in 1693 and culminated around 1740. During its history, the castle was used in the slave trade activities in the 18th century and as a prison until 1970. This fortress is considered a jewel of military architecture in Matanzas and due to its historical and architectural values is considered a National Monument.
 
Lunch at the Paladar Amelia del Mar.
Visit the first Pharmaceutical Museum in Latin America which was reopened on May 1, 1964. Although eclecticism dominated its construction, it still retains all the original furnishings and elements and is the only French pharmacy from the end of the 19th century that remains today that is protected under the law.  It was declared a National Monument in 2007.
 
Return to the Hotel in Havana. After the tour, return to Havana to the Hotel. In the evening dinner at “Atelier Paladar” where the First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama and her daughters had lunch during their visit to Cuba.
 
Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

Friday June 30 DAY EIGHT
After breakfast, transfer to Jose Marti Airport in Havana to take the flight back to Miami.
Catch your connecting flight from Miami to Boston.
And take all of your new memories of St Augustine, Miami and Cuba back home to share with family and friends!!
Meals Included: Breakfast

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