Trinidad and the Valley de los Ingenios

Sugar built Trinidad. Founded early in the 16th century and named for the Holy Trinity, the Cuban town served as a springboard for the conquest of the mainland, then grew rich on the plantations of the nearby Valle de los Ingenios. Grand mansions from those flush 18th- and 19th-century decades, among them the Palacio Brunet and the Palacio Cantero, still line its cobbled streets. UNESCO inscribed Trinidad and the Valley de los Ingenios in 1988.