This museum is a perfectly preserved 19th-century natural-medicine pharmacy that looks out onto the Parque de Libertad through large stained glass windows. The pharmacy closed its doors in 1964, and has been preserved exactly as it was on that day, down to the huge, ornate cash register; the log book with handwritten recipes for each prescription; the rolls of brown paper to wrap the glass bottles that were individually filled and labeled; and the ceiling-high, handsome wood-and-glass cases holding hundreds of decorative porcelain jars. There are guided tours to the distillery behind the shop, where the pharmacists manufactured their world-famous trademark syrups and tonics. 

Known as the Creole Venice for the high number of bridges that set it apart, the City of Matanzas is located on a beautiful bay, beside the Yumuri and San Juan Rivers. Matanzas, a prosperous city, was founded in 1693 and which some call the Athens of Cuba, in reference to its many poets. Monumental buildings of neoclassical features are a proof of the boom that this quiet city has experienced beginning in late 18th century. Matanzas grew around a large bay, well protected by a solid network of fortresses the most important of which can still be visited and admired today. Parque Libertad is the main town square which is home to some valuable historic buildings. 

Recently restored on the outside, this massive, neoclassical church with two ornate towers is famous for its interior frescoes. In front of the church, there is a huge ceiba tree with a heavy, metal bell hanging from one of the branches, commemorating the bells that were rung to call in slaves from the sugar plantations. On the ground below lies a large, antique metal gear from a sugar mill.

This beautifully restored museum is worth a visit for its wide-ranging exhibits on everything from archeology to ethnology to numismatics to colonial weaponry. The museum has a beautiful, bright inner courtyard displaying some lovely, early 19th-century furniture, as well as an ornate horse-drawn hearse. Lots of natural light illuminates the quirky, Victorian-era potpourri of natural-history exhibits, from bugs, butterflies, polymitas (snails with multicolored shells), to preserved fleas in nuptial dress, viewed under a magnifying glass. Antique buttons and buckles, pen nibs, death masks, a Masonic lodge throne in the shape of a peacock. On the historical side, there are the usual photographs of Cárdenas heroes of the wars of independence and the Revolution and a gruesome reminder of the risks rebels took, in the form of the garrote used to strangle victims to death.