Bronnie's Travels

HAVANA CUBA 1.5.11 LABOUR DAY BY NIGHT

Kerrie and I at 1830 Salsa Club at Miramar

Salsa Dancing

Grilled crayfish at 1830 rest cost 12.00CUD = 12.00! Very salty!!

This is the Club at Miramar- 1830 Salsa Club and Rest built in 1830 and prominent artitech

HAVANA CUBA 1.5.11 LABOUR DAY

HAVANA CUBA 1.5.11

Today is Labour Day and 1 million people march in celebration of Castro!!! And I guess freedom and Communist Party!

Watching it on TV they mainly all dressed in Red t-shirts some in white. Walking in an orderly manner to the square with lot of Vivo being chanted!

Streets are blocked so Alberto had to get up at 6.30m to be at the Hotel to take us on a walking tour.

This is a WOW city!!!

I am totally blown away with the wide avenues, the 50’s cars passing by, tricycles, and horse drawn carts. The buildings are so grand, some built in 1791. Luckily in 1982 UNESCO declared Havana’s historic city centre a world heritage site just like Panamas Casco Vieja and now they are refurbishing these beautiful buildings.

We walk for over 3 hours gazing at the many many buildings and small streets with the brightly coloured and amazing wrought iron doors and balconies.

We cant stop taking photos as every corner there is another fabulous building or cathedral

We visit the hotel where Ernest Hemingway spent so much time and saw his room 511 with his typewriter and books and lovely photos of his 4 wife’s and lovers. Marlene Dietrich was also a very close friend! The photo made me feel old as I saw her perform many years ago in Adelaide.

We stop and have lunch at a state managed restaurant and have firstly a maize dish which is like cuss cuss or polenta quite thick and very light in taste but I like it, maybe even like a porridge!

Salsa music is being played in the background and the setting is like out of a 50’s movie. All these restaurants have this same amazing feel to it. Dark timber and great ambience. We then of course are offered the fish pork or chicken!! We go for the pork, their national dish, this is a little cold and pretty ordinary but get used to it as this is what we are going to get at all state managed rests!! We are not here for the gourmet foods we are here for the amazing sights we are seeing.

In fact I am amazed as I thought it was going to be rather less sophisticated than it is. There is a sort of rather lovely ambience and feel about the whole city. I love the sound of the salsa being played around every corner with a few musos, the streets are so clean and gorgeous squares with monuments of VIPs ! Of course I can’t remember their names!! All so grand!

The buildings could be in Rome Paris Berlin. This certainly must have been an amazing place to come before Castro took over. Perfect weather grand hotels and easy to get to from US or Europe!

But the locals in fact 85% so Alberto tells us are in favour of him He brought them freedom and a better life! They get coupons once a month and are given 1 kg sugar, ¼ kg salt 1kg chicken and so on! Great! Free health care. They have to subsidize their allotment with getting more money from tourism and anything they can come up with. They are now getting more freedom on the private enterprise side of things!

Old head quarter of Barcardi Rum art deco building

Hotel Hemmingway stayed

Now we wander back to the hotel for a few hours before we head off to see some salsa dancing then back to go to the ballet, which we are looking forward too!

HAVANA CUBA 304.11

30.4.11

We head off on our new adventure to Cuba flight leaves at 10.00am, a 2.15 hr. flight wit Copa Air, which was very pleasant. It is the Panamanian Airline.

One thing I will miss from US an Panama are the automated loos and handwashing facilities!! Loo flushes automactically, love it!

Also spotlessly clean! I lovd the Bristol Hotels business cards they made for us so we just showed the taxi driver the card and he knew where to take us. Even had our name printed on it!!

Arrive in Havana and a pretty easy customs passage, just had to show my travel insurance, they didn’t even want to see the forms we had filled in on the plane, which I might add, were in Spanish!! (Had to get the form checked by the flight attendant just in case I got it wrong) Actually I was quite impressed with myself as I was able to decipher it pretty well!

So we are met by Alberto who is our guide for our time here and taken to our Hotel Saratoga. This is the best in Havana and was completly refurbished 5 years ago by a Swiss company and the government.

Here is where the movie stars use to come and stay and even Churchill. It is very grand in 1930s style. Our rooms are large as is the bathroom with tiled floors and dark timber cupboards

We head upstairs to lie by the pool, which is on the rooftop with a magical view of the city.

Lovely to have a relax!

Alberto picks us up at 8.00p.m and takes us to La Torre which is a government restaurant 33 floor up in a tower near the ocean and city lights view

Well here not many lights the city is very dark but we are placed in a section where the lights shine!

It really is very dark and after Vegas quite a dramatic difference.

So the meal is soup vegetable or mushroom and choice of fish chicken and pork and dessert. Now this is all that is going to be offered here for the next 8 days!!! In the government rests the food is frozen but when we go to the Paladar we will have fresh food! These are private restaurants and only a few of them here as 95% are managed by the State.Hence hard to get into as they have creative cuisine!!! Will keep you posted on that one, as we haven’t been as yet!!