The Francisco Donatien Cigar Factory offers a more intimate visit than some of the major Havana cigar factories. Nowadays, the authentic cigars are made, through manual procedures with some centuries of tradition. In a long, high-ceilinged hall, mostly young men—sporting trendy, shaved hair-dos—sit at old-fashioned, wooden tables, carefully destemming aged tobacco leaves, which look like thin strips of leather, then slowly rolling layers of different tobacco. You can watch a Montecristo in the making, as a guide explains the process. This factory is one of the emblematic buildings of the XIX century's architecture in Pinar del Río. In the entrance of this building, there is a shop in which the visitor may buy a great variety of cigar bands of the most known brands.

Just outside town, this Afro-Cuban restaurant and nightclub puts on a cabaret show on an outdoor stage with dancers plus singers. The restaurant is famed for its pollo ahumado (smoked chicken). The bar and cabaret are the city's top nightspots.

The José Jacinto Milanés Theater, or just the Milanés Theater, was built in 1883 and this is one of the most attractive theaters in Cuba, considered as one of the main symbols of the city of Pinar del Río. It is a beautiful wooden theater with 540 seats dating from 1845, being one of the oldest ones in Latin America, and it counts with a recognized acoustic. It was renewed in 2006 and its colorful insides are also worth a look.

Installed in a fantastical Moorish palace, dripping with carved stone griffins, this museum is even more fascinating for its outlandish architecture and quaint, old-fashioned displays than for its hodgepodge, natural history collection. The delightful surprise here is the interior garden where, amid Art Nouveau painted floor tiles, intricately carved wooden doors and tropical plants, a giant concrete model of a demonically grinning tyrannosaurus Rex reigns. The exhibits include dusty dioramas of desiccated stuffed specimens, from antelope to zebra, plus an array of mounted animal heads on the walls. There's a room dedicated to butterfly and moth collections, and a shell collection is displayed in showcases held up by carved seahorses.