Final day in Cuba - a stroll through Vedado

The empty swimming pool, another common sight in Cuba.  This time providing the perfect football pitch.

Sea salt decay, with a swanky hotel in the background.  Must be Vedado!

My favourite homemade peso pastries of the trip. Complemented with dark Cuban coffee.  Delicious! 

As you can see.

Ah, it arrived.  Our final day in Cuba.  I wasn't ready to go home, and was pleased that we could spend our last afternoon in Vedado, for lunch and a bracing walk along the Malecon in the sunshine.

What a fantastic trip.  Farewell, fair island!  Hasta luego!  See you again soon - I hope!

Ah, the ballet!

A trip to Havana wouldn't be complete without a visit to the ballet, which has received government funding consistently since the 1959 revolution.  The salary of a ballerina is comparable to that of a doctor - an indication that the arts are held in high regard.

We bought tickets for La Sylphide - a rather strange little work set in a Scottish farmhouse, and apparently one of the world's oldest surviving romantic ballets.  It was a bit odd seeing Cuban ballerinas dancing in kilts, and the performance was a little bit rough around the edges - think recorded music blasting out over an empty orchestra pit - but I'm very pleased I went. The Gran Teatro of Havana, where the Cuban Nacional Ballet performs, is beautiful in a scruffily elegant sort of way.

We were also privileged to chance upon some junior ballerinas rehearsing at the Hotel Nacional a few days earlier.

Havana's colourful streets

Broken pavements and bad street lights.  Authentically Cuban.   

As is this chair.

Delicious homemade pastries from a peso stall - these ones with guava jam and sweet shortcrust pastry.

Street art, Havana style

Baseball is big in Cuba, and Industriales is one of Havana's two teams. We attempted to get to a game, it being the height of the season, but the only way to find out the schedule is to track down a man selling the Granma - the socialist daily paper - on the street somewhere, and look at the listings inside. Needless to say, the Granma sellers eluded us for some time, and when we did find one, Industriales had played all their matches that week. 

This one's by Brazilian graffiti artist Nina.  You have to catch the street art before the sea salt devours it in Havana!  Apparently there's a Banksy somewhere but I didn't manage to track it down.

Revolutionaries and artists: part 2

And so to the fine art museum.  Lots to see from lots of eras.  Just a few pictures of some lovely sculptures.  Followed by sustenance from the cafe inside the beauty of the Bacardi family's pre-revolution Art Deco building.

Revolutionaries and artists: part 1

The room of mirrors built to resemble the one at the Palace of Versailles

An excerpt from one of Castro's most famous speeches.  Shame about the translation!

The palace was the scene of an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Batista in 1957 - the bullet holes remain.

 Cretins' Corner.  Hmmm.

A cultural double whammy today.  The Museo de la Revolucion followed by the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes.  The former is housed in the magnificent presidential palace of the 1950s dictator General Fulgencio Batista, and describes in detail the events of the 1959 revolution, through the formation of the socialist state and up to the present, although interestingly the Special Period doesn't really feature.

Sundowners at the Nacional

I seem to have a homing device to expensive hotels wherever I travel, and Havana was no exception.  We enjoyed a glass of rum at the Hotel Nacional - a stunning 1930s building reminiscent of an Arabian palace overlooking the Malecon.  Strangely, Iran's President Ahmadinejad was staying there at the time, on a tour of his allies.  We spotted his convoy of vehicles leaving the hotel grounds as we arrived.

A day at the beach

An early start - before dawn - and a long drive west of Havana for a day trip to the beach.  We had a 'modern version' of the classic song Guantanamera playing in the car to keep us awake, and a taxi driver with a rather boyish sense of humour who told corny jokes most of the way there.  Apparently they lost a lot in translation, and weren't very funny to begin with.

Capitolio before dawn

The Valle de Vinales

The Florida Straits at Cayo Jutias.  90 miles to the free world.

We travelled through Pinar del Rio province, the Valle de Vinales, and out to the sandy white beach at Cayo Jutias.  Blissful and well worth the long drive.