24 March 2025 – 30 March 2025
Seven days from Havana’s revolutionary memory and Santa Clara to Trinidad’s colonial streets and the Caribbean shores of Varadero and Cayo Blanco.
Route map
Day by day
We were met at the airport and taken to the VIP lounge, where rum and cola awaited us at eight in the morning. The warm welcome and the rum made the long arrival easier; without the agency, we were told, the queue might have taken three hours. Our guide Roberto has worked in tourism for thirty years. He is fifty-five but looks closer to thirty-five, and immediately wins us over.
Read the full entry →We left the hotel in the morning and first visited the nursery attended by Roberto’s daughter. In Cuba’s communist system, childcare and early education are considered a state responsibility and are provided free of charge from six months to six years of age.
Read the full entry →After breakfast we left the hotel and entered Trinidad. The town was colonised in 1514 and became one of the early centres of slavery in Cuba. Africans were forcibly brought to work in sugar-cane production. Hundreds of mills produced sugar, molasses and rum, enriching both the island and its landowners. They built palatial houses and furnished them with porcelain and furniture imported from Europe.
Read the full entry →We were in Varadero, staying once again with the Spanish Meliá group in a large hotel stretching along the coast. The beach was beautiful, the sea warm and the sun finally strong enough to make the day feel entirely Caribbean.
Read the full entry →We set out by catamaran for Cayo Blanco and an encounter with dolphins. The wind knocked us about throughout the journey, but the colour of the water and the island’s natural beauty made the difficult crossing worthwhile.
Read the full entry →We travelled by coach to Ernest Hemingway’s Cuban home, Finca Vigía. After his death, his wife Mary donated the property. Visitors crowded around its open windows, and from the setting it was easy to understand why the landscape and sea inspired The Old Man and the Sea.
Read the full entry →Breakfast was at El Café, an unexpectedly lovely place hidden in the side streets of Old Havana. It occupies an old building and makes its own bread; the pancakes alone made it worth finding.
Read the full entry →Album
Address book
Our first hotel in central Havana, marked by its pre-revolutionary past and a 1950s atmosphere.
PublicFortifications guarding Havana harbour and the evening cannon ceremony.
PublicA Havana stop devoted to the revolution and the Granma yacht.
PublicChe Guevara’s museum, memorial and mausoleum in Santa Clara.
PublicA UNESCO town of colonial homes, pottery workshops and the legacy of sugar.
PublicA southern city with French-influenced architecture and a vast natural harbour.
PublicOur stay on Varadero’s Caribbean coast.
PublicA day of catamaran sailing and swimming with dolphins.
PublicErnest Hemingway’s home and workplace outside Havana.
PublicContemporary art, music and Havana nightlife in a converted factory.
PublicAn open-air show staged among the trees since 1939.
PublicOur farewell dinner in a remarkable Havana building dating from 1903.
Public