A week in Havana Cuba

I have just returned from an absolutely amazing week in Havana, Cuba.  A big change from my usual beach holiday in Cuba, this week was all about experiencing urban Cuban culture.  Given the current political situations in both Cuba and the United States, and the uncertainly about what will happen, or not happen, in Cuba's future, I thought that now was a good time to make a return trip to Havana (before the possibility of there being a Starbuck's or McDonald's).

Havana has a flavour all its own; a merging of colonialism, capitalism and Communism all into one.  At the heart of the city is Habana Vieja (Old Havana) which is where I stayed, living with a family.  Habana Vieja is home to approximately 60,000 people and contains some of the finest collection of Spanish-colonial buildings in the Americas.  The city was founded in the early 1500's, and by the turn of the 18th century, Havana was the third largest city in the New World (after Mexico City and Lima).  In 1762 the English captured Havana but ceded it back to Spain the following year in exchange for Florida. The city continued to grow and flourish.  The first public gas lighting arrived in 1768, along with a workable system of aqueducts.  Most of the streets were cobbled, lined with beautiful mansions.  By the mid-1800s Havana had achieved a level of modernity that surpassed that of Madrid.  By the 1950s Havana was a wealthy and thoroughly modern city with a couple of skyscrapers even starting to dot the horizon.  Following the revolution in 1959, a mass exodus of the wealthy and the middle class began, inexorably changing the face of Havana.  Hotels, restaurants and businesses fell to bankruptcy and festering slums and shanty towns marred the suburbs.  Havana's aged housing and infrastructure have long since suffered benign neglect.  Finally, towards the end of the 20th century, the revolutionary government established a preservation program for Habana Vieja. Havana's historic sites have been inventoried and the city is now working on a restoration program to return the ancient city to its original splendour.  There is still a long way to go but there is definite work in progress and the original magnificence of some of the buildings is again evident.

My trip started with sunrise in Toronto, so my first coffee of the day was with this scenery:

And my second cup of coffee that day was with this scenery:

I've been trying to decide how to organize my blog posts for this trip and I think that rather than going day by day as I usually do, I might go with 'themes'.  I'll try and title each post so that you'll know what it will be about - and I invite you to read and look at the pictures if you're interested.