Today we had a tour of various parts of Havana, which is
divided into 3 large areas and certainly not walkable. Its home to about 2.3m people in the various
districts, 180,000 of which live in the old town.
First we stopped at Revolutionary Square
which was built in the 1950s and where Fidel Castro used to speak to the people
– on one occasion for 8 hours apparently (without repetition, hesitation or deviation
for those fans of Just a Minute).
But by far the old town is THE place to go. The architecture is just outstanding and
sadly half of its falling down despite the efforts of the conservationists. There is just so much to do, many of the
areas look like they’ve been bombed out but it’s simply the effects of the
proximity to the sea, high temperatures, pollution and high rainfall which all
erode the fabric of these wonderful 1900c buildings.
It’s very hard to capture in photos just how wonderful these
old buildings are, everything just looks so ‘flat’ and also the very harsh
lighting doesn’t help. Tonight we’re
going back to the old town for dinner but I don’t think I’ll be able to roam
around but we come back to Havana for another 2 nights and will be staying
within walking distance so I really hope we’ll be able to wander around and
take photos in much more sympathetic light.
There were a few people dressed in "typical" costume who were happy to be photographed for a CUC1.
We went back to the old town for dinner, which wasn’t much
to talk about as unfortunately the menu was restricted as the expected, black market – we think, supplies hadn’t arrived! But we did have live music.
