CAMAGÜEY.- More than half a millennium from its foundation, the Village of Santa María del Puerto del Príncipe, today Camagüey, shows itself enigmatic to the eyes of those who discover it, and also to the eyes of those who were born in it and that we go round it each day.

In this village, the tonalities, for instance, characterize its spaces, its majestic character. The ochre, the reddish tones in the tiles and the tinajones (earthenware jars), the clay … there isn´t, really, other colors that remind so much its age, its wide yards and its sunny alleys.

The urban landscape of this city, seen from the height, presents itself as a broken dish, a labyrinthine and capricious net of streets, backstreets and alleys.

Camagüey, city of tinajones (earthenware jars), the one with a lot of squares and slender churches owns, thanks to the Iberian roots of architecture and urbanism of the first Cuban villages, around 50 alleys.

Even their names are curious and witty. The most popular ones in the city are Las Niñas (the Girls), el Sacristán (the Sacristan), Mojarrieta, Apodaca, Cuerno (Horn), Magdalena, Soledad (Solitude), Correa, Las González (the González), Fundición (Foundry) and Triana.

In addition, there are singular characteristics that turn them in symbols of the city. For example, we find the smallest alley, known as el callejón de la Miseria (The Alley of Misery (today Tula Oms) with only four meters long and two meters wide, and it is situated in the Bedoya Square.

The narrowest alley of the city is the one of the Priest (Víctor M. Caballero) between Cielo (Sky) street and 20 de Mayo (May 20th) street, with almost 80 centimeters wide; although in one of its ends the alley Funda del Catre or Pozo de Mate (Ramón Ponte) reaches that number.

Translated by Linet Acuña Quilez