I spent a total of almost 6 days in La Habana but didn’t really get up to very much. These were my highlights.
Doing nothing: I spent a lot of time sitting on the balcony of the Casa Particular where I was staying, watching the view and listening to Maroon 5 and The Cat Empire.
As I’ve mentioned before, Cuba does good storms and it was a wonderful place from which to watch them come over the city.
Salsa Dancing lessons: One of the reasons I spent so long in La Habana was that I wanted to get in some serious salsa dancing lessons before I left. I ended up doing ~2hrs/day at Salsa en Clave with Yordi as my teacher. My dancing is apparently pretty good, but I have a long way to go with my styling 🙁
Street Art: In all my wandering around, I came across a lot of great street art. It’s funny – I’m not often interested in formal art galleries, but I love the informal art found in the streets.
Panadería y Dulcería San Jose: A bakery on the main pedestrian street in La Habana Vieja (Obispo) that sold the most incredible pastries. The box has my favourites – Palmeras, Cocadas (round, moist coconut balls), Catalana (flakey pastry filled with coconut paste), and the best brownies I’ve ever eaten! I called in every day after my salsa dancing class.
La Habana Vieja: It is touristy and it is a cliche, but wandering around La Habana Vieja really is lovely. The architecture is incredible though it is sad to see the state of disrepair. That being said, there is a lot of restoration going on … the sound of La Habana Vieja is jack hammers! Would be amazing to see it all completely restored!
El Malecon: Another of the touristy cliches, but again definitely the place to be. I have to admit, as a single woman sitting there by yourself – you do get hassled a lot! All the guys want to chat with you. In the end, on the last evening, I resorted to putting in my headphones and turning on my music so I had an excuse to not talk (plus it drowned out the sound of the traffic). But even then, I reckon within the space of 1.5 hours, I got tapped on the shoulder 11 times by guys wanting to get my attention and telling me to take my headphones out. Nope!
Plaza de la Revolución: Got up very early one morning to walk out to this massive monument, which is bordered by one of the most iconic images in La Habana – that of Che Guevara.
The old cars: Yes, they really are still everywhere and kinda cool to see 🙂
