Hello Havana

Early, early morning. Long, long wait at the airport. (We were early... I was anxious about getting the Cuban visas... I shouldn’t have been).

We arrived into Havana late in the afternoon. Our hotel Teligrafico - was the first hotel in Cuba. It is right on the corner of the main square an is one of those ‘grand dame’ hotels which hasn’t been touched in the best part of a century. Happily, the kids recognised the charm and looked past the shabbiness.

Today it was Alex who felt exhausted. So Mitch, Charley and I left her to sleep while we set out to explore the local area. NOTHING has hanged since I was here! Well, that’s not exactly true- the beautiful building that was formerly a grand department store - and decaying when Ben and I visited in 2001 has been restored into the most wonderfully elegant and stylish 5-star hotel. I had booked dinner there for our last night but hadn’t had a reply to my email, so we went to check. The views across Havana from the 6th floor poolside (rooftop) restaurant are breathtaking and we are all really looking forward to the experience.

But otherwise it’s all quite the same. There, on the verandah of the Hotel Inglaterra we had coffee.. and a mojito at La Floridita.. all still unchanged. Ghosts everywhere, but nice to have these new memories with the kids overlay the old ones.

We returned after an hour’s walk and collected Alex for dinner - a rather average (but quite expensive) restaurant recommended by the hotel. Everyone chose the fish.

And then back to the hotel where we dropped Mitch who was now fading. The girls and I walked around a bit and then went back.

By now, a live band was setting up on a stage right outside the hotel - actually under our window, and Alex and I watched and danced for a while before going to bed - our dreams punctuated by the sound of Cuban brass and percussion.Read more