Tourism and recreational options in Cuba, which benefits from a privileged geographic location in the Caribbean region, are complemented by dozens of excellent beaches, breathtakingly-beautiful mountainous zones and sites of historic and cultural value.

In the case of eastern Cuba, provinces like Camagüey, Ciego de Avila, Holguín, Santiago de Cuba, Granma and Las Tunas offer heavenly places to spend your vacations.

One of them is Santiago de Cuba, which is the second largest city in the Caribbean island and is considered the capital of the Caribbean, due to its geographic location and its five-century-old history.

Around the city, la Gran Piedra, which was registered in the Guinness book of world records, stands out majestically and impressively. It weighs nearly 70 tons and is 1,220 meters above sea level.

In Camagüey, the beach option is in Santa Lucía, which offers a coastal sand strip that is 20 kilometers long, warm crystal-clear waters and is protected by a huge coral reef.

In Las Tunas, there are 35 excellent pristine beaches along more than 260 kilometers of irregular shores, where tourists can watch Cuban birds in areas like Bahía de Malagueta, and can visit the largest shelter of American crocodiles in the Caribbean region.

Holguín holds Bariay, the site where Genoese Admiral Christopher Columbus firs landed in Cuba and enjoyed its natural beauty.

Other coastal zones of unique beauty are the beaches Guardalavaca, Esmeralda and Pesquero, which are complemented by the attractions of the Bahía de Naranjo Natural Park and the aboriginal archeological site in Chorro de Maíta.

Granma province holds nearly 50 percent of Cuba's historic sites, including the city of Bayamo, which was the second village founded by the Spanish conquistadors in 1513 and was designated a National Monument.

In addition, the national parks Desembarco del Granma and Sierra Maestra complement the offers for nature enthusiasts, who can watch exclusive plant and animal species, pristine forests and one of the world's most representatives systems of karst marine terraces.

Eastern Cuba, with a centuries-old history, also holds the ruins of dozens of French-Haitian coffee farms built in the region in the late 18th century and the early 19th century.

Nearly 100 of those farms have been registered in Santiago de Cuba, the remains of a period when the French settlers arrived in the country, bringing along their customs and culture.

The remains of 32 of those ancient coffee farms developed by French landowners who fled the Haitian Revolution in 1789 can also be found in Cuba's easternmost province, Guantanamo.