Cuba travel stories
Havana Like an untethered live wire, Havana sizzles at a single touch. Rumba music serenades the city from the balconies of colonial mansions as mango juice cups are hawked from their first floor window sills. Fiery competitions of street-corner domino games punctuate...
Preconceptions of Cuba The pictures of Cuba highlighted in the glossy pages of my guide book show a vibrant world of flamenco dancers and multicolored 1950s cars, and yet the blisteringly hot cement building my small plane touches down outside seemed to have little in...
Running Through Havana A New Lens on Havana Understanding the flow of Cuban life begins at the artery of the Old City, Calle Obispo. Formed of piece-mealed cobblestone and sand (occasionally broken up to reveal new fiber-optic cable), Calle Obispo's streets run...
DOWNERS GROVE, IL "“ July 18, 2011: For decades, the allure of Cuba has remained just out of reach for most Americans. Thanks to amended regulations, Americans may now travel to Cuba legally in the experienced hands of global luxury travel company Abercrombie...
I love walking through the Havana Forest on a hot afternoon. The sound of the water is soothing and the trees provide great shade. The Havana Forest runs along the Almendares River and many locals fish here. The best time to go is when it has rained recently, when...
One of my favorite evening activities in Havana is to go for a walk along the Malecon. Eight kilometres long, I often walk the whole seawall twice, since my husband and I live at one end of it. Sunset is the best time to go walking, since the view of Old Havana is...
My favorite place for coffee in Havana is Casa de Huevos in Old Havana. The name literally translates to mean "House of Eggs." There are a few tables at one side of the restaurant, where I have sat on a few occasions to order fried eggs in a nest of French...
The area around what is now the city of Cienfuegos was originally called Cacicazgo de Jagua by the indigenous peoples. In 1819, the city became the only one in Cuba to be founded by French immigrants, who arrived from Bordeaux and Louisiana. The city's original...
The Capitol Building in Havana, inaugurated in 1929, is based on the Capitol Building in Washington DC, but, at nearly 300 feet high, is slightly taller. It is best viewed in the early morning from the Parque Central. The sun was behind me and I gained a great...
On my third day in BA, having seen some of the major districts, I thought it time for an off the beaten track adventure (city style that is). In the guide book map a friend found a marker signifying a Che Guevara Museum out at the end of the green line, but...
When Fidel Castro lets go of the reins of power -- however it happens -- visiting Cuba will become attractive to U.S. citizens once again. However, the laws that have prevented easy travel to the Caribbean nation since 1963 won't go away overnight. Castro's...
