Varadero - City of Cuba

Varadero is a resort town in the province of Matanzas, Cuba, and one of the largest resort areas in the Caribbean. Varadero is also called Playa Azul, meaning "blue beach" in Spanish.

The first mention of Varadero was in 1555. The place was first used as a dry dock and the salt mines of the peninsula supplied most of the Spanish Latin America Fleet since 1587. However, the foundation date of Varadero as city was only on December 5, 1887, when ten families from the city of Cárdenas obtained a permission to build their vacation homes between today's 42nd and 48th Street.

It was established as a municipality at the administrative re-distribution of July 3, 1976 from territories previously part of Cárdenas.

Varadero is first and foremost a tourist resort town, boasting more than 20 km of white sandy beaches. The first tourists visited Varadero as early as the 1870s, and for years it was considered an elite resort. In 1910 the annual rowing regatta was started, five years later the first hotel, named Varadero and later Club Nautico, was built. Tourism grew in the early 1930s as Irénée du Pont Nemours, an American millionaire, built his estate on the peninsula. Many famous and infamous people stayed in Varadero, for example Al Capone.

After the Cuban Revolution in 1959, many mansions were expropriated from their rich owners. As a symbol of the new integrated tourism for Cubans and foreign visitors of all social classes, the Park of the 8000 Cubicles was built in 1960. Visitors could leave their belongings in the basement of the park, had access to sanitary installations and gastronomic services on the first floor, and could rent bathing articles and swimsuits.The central park, the cinema and various cultural meeting places were neglected in favor of a hotel-centred all-inclusive-tourism and finally closed. The International Carnival, an initiative of Cubans and foreigners started in the 1980s, also ceased.

Varadero is primarily visited by European, Latin American and Canadian tourists. The number of U.S. tourists visiting Varadero, although increasing, has been limited because of the restrictions that make it illegal for U.S. citizens to visit Cuba as tourists.