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Cumaná is the capital of Sucre State in northeastern Venezuela, at the entrance of the Gulf of Cariaco where the Manzanares River meets the Caribbean. Founded by Spanish friars in 1515, it is one of the first cities Spain established on the American mainland and is described as the oldest continuously inhabited Hispanic city in South America.
Earthquakes destroyed the town several times, so its oldest buildings date from the 17th and 18th centuries. Hilltop castles built against pirate raids still overlook the city, and the scientists Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland stayed here in 1799. Cumaná is the birthplace of Antonio José de Sucre, the Grand Marshal of Ayacucho, and of the poets Andrés Eloy Blanco and José Antonio Ramos Sucre.
Visitors climb to the Castle of San Antonio de la Eminencia, see the Santa Inés basilica, the cathedral and the Sucre museum, and spend time on the beaches of the city and of nearby Mochima National Park, whose bays and islands draw many Venezuelan travelers.
The Castle of San Antonio de la Eminencia in Cumaná was built between 1659 and 1686 on the Pan de Azúcar hill to guard the city against pirates. Shaped as a four-pointed star with walls two meters thick, it later held José Antonio Páez as a prisoner and became a National Monument in 1965.
The Castle of Santa María de la Cabeza in Cumaná was built from 1669 to 1673 because the forts of San Antonio and Santa Catalina were seen as too weak, and it housed governors and a garrison. The earthquake of 1797 left it almost uninhabitable, and its ruins stand beside the Santa Inés basilica.
The Basilica of Santa Inés is the oldest church in Cumaná, restored around 1853 in the San Francisco quarter beside the ruins of the Santa María de la Cabeza castle. It has three naves on fluted Doric columns and twin bell towers, and Pope Francis made it a minor basilica on 28 November 2023.
Cumaná Cathedral, the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, stands on Calle Rivas facing Plaza Andrés Eloy Blanco. Begun in the 18th century and partly destroyed by the 1929 earthquake, it was restored in 1936 as a neoclassical church with wooden altarpieces and images from Spain.
The Museo Gran Mariscal de Ayacucho in Cumaná is devoted to the life of Antonio José de Sucre, the independence hero born in the city. Housed in a building of 1945 by the Manzanares River, it opened in 1974 and shows uniforms, paintings he owned, old weapons and a Spanish silk banner dated 1533.
The birthplace of Andrés Eloy Blanco in Cumaná is the house of the poet, lawyer and politician born in the city on 6 August 1896. One of the great figures of Venezuelan literature, he was foreign minister under Rómulo Gallegos, and the house where he was born is now a sight of Cumaná.
The Casa Ramos Sucre is the birthplace of the poet and diplomat José Antonio Ramos Sucre, born in Cumaná in 1890, and stands in the historic center near the Santa Inés basilica. His family moved to Caracas in 1907, and since 1976 the house has been a center for literary activities run by the state.
Plaza Bolívar in Cumaná, first called Parque Bolívar, was built on the site of a Sucre museum that collapsed in the 1929 earthquake, where the colonial mint had stood from 1797. With its statue of Bolívar and the state government building beside it, it was restored for the city's 500th anniversary.
Playa San Luis is the main beach of Cumaná, on the city's western shore, which runs for more than 7 kilometers and holds some of the best beaches of eastern Venezuela, among them Los Uveros and Los Bordones. It is a relaxing place for a swim close to the city center.
The Manzanares River crosses Cumaná from south to north before flowing into the Gulf of Cariaco after an 80 kilometer course from the Turimiquire range. Its fresh water drew the first stable Spanish settlement on the mainland, and Humboldt opened the account of his famous American journey with it.
The Museo del Mar in Cumaná displays marine and maritime collections. It opened on 12 October 1984 in the old airport, closed in 1997 when that year's earthquake broke its aquariums, and reopened in 2005 in the Luis Manuel Peñalver Cultural Complex on Calle Vela de Coro, where it is open today.
Mochima National Park lies on the coast between Cumaná and Puerto La Cruz and was created on 19 December 1973. Covering 94,935 hectares, over half of it sea, it protects bays, cliffs, coral reefs, white sand beaches and 32 islands, and its beaches are popular with visitors from all of Venezuela.
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