A Subjective Tourist’s View of Life in Cuba

By Joyce, on April 9th, 2017
Bodega la caridad - government store

While we were in Cuba on our last trip in 2012, we heard a lot about the rationing of food and supplies. We still remember sitting in a classroom with a teacher explaining the educational system to us and her comments about having a severe headache. As aspirin was difficult to buy in Cuba due [Read more …]

Havana Cuba Restaurants and Hotel

By Joyce, on April 6th, 2017

Our last blog talked about the poor dining experience we had at an entertainment venue, Legends de Guarjirato. We don’t need (or want ) to rehash this disappointment so let’s move onto other dining experiences we had in Havana Cuba Havana Restaurants Paladar Los Mercaderes. Havana has many paladars. These are privately owned restaurants, as [Read more …]

Havana Cuba’s Nighttime Entertainment

By Joyce, on April 4th, 2017
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Cuba is an island of music. We took advantage of every opportunity to explore different elements of this musical heritage. We spent many hours in cafes and lounges, selected primarily on the basis of the music they offered. Although this mandated many, many drinks, we made the necessary sacrifice to enjoy a broad range of [Read more …]

Vedado Neighborhood of Havana Cuba

By Joyce, on April 2nd, 2017
Hotel National builing

While most people think of Old Havana as being the place to visit, Havana has many other interesting neighborhoods This large neighborhood, on the northwestern edge of the city, was home to a number of the city’s most wealthy and powerful people from the mid-19th through mid-20th centuries. It currently has some of the city’s [Read more …]

Central Havana Cuba

By Joyce, on March 30th, 2017
paseo del prado lion

When one thinks of Cuba, one often thinks mostly of Old Havana. But Havana is more than Old Havana’s lovely Spanish Colonial buildings. Central Havana is dominated by huge, beautiful—but often very neglected—Neo-Classical public buildings. Built just outside the old city walls, it is a major thoroughfare and a popular strolling and shopping area for [Read more …]

Habana Vieja, or Old Havana

By Joyce, on March 26th, 2017
Underground water system

Havana Cuba is a blend of beautiful old buildings and a newer section. Although no blog, nor pictures, nor words can describe the beauty of Old Havana, this blog will try to wet your appetite to visit this beautiful city. We spent many, many hours wandering Old Havana’s streets and exploring most of it historic [Read more …]

Havana Cuba’s Highlights

By Joyce, on March 24th, 2017
Lola

In 2012, we were fortunate enough to take an educational tour of Cuba. It was a formal-group-based cultural tour, and although we loved Cuba, the agency we worked through (Cuba Education Tours) sold us out to a group of travelling musicians whom we were forced to listen to time and time again (we believe they [Read more …]

Havana Restaurants and Music Clubs

By Tom, on February 2nd, 2012

The vast majority of our restaurants were included in the trip, where we were served per-selected appetizers (typically either salad or some form of seafood soup) and desserts (invariably ice cream) and chose from a selection of three per-arranged entrees (typically some form of fish, chicken or pork, although we sometime had a hard time [Read more …]

Educating Ourselves On and In Cuba--Legally

By Tom, on February 2nd, 2012
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We have always wanted to visit Cuba, and we have always wanted to do so before (or IF) travel from the U.S. is fully opened and Cuba is turned back into another Las Vegas, or worse, another Cancun Zona Holterera. Thanks to The Obama administration’s easing of travel requirements, we were able to do just [Read more …]