Havana merging the past and present

by | Mar 9, 2016 | Americas

What makes Cuba compelling is not just its myriad culture, music, landscape, art and friendly people but the fact that it has been the forbidden frontier, with its windows shut to the world.

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What makes Cuba compelling is not just its myriad culture, music, landscape, art and friendly people but the fact that it has been the forbidden frontier, with its windows shut to the world. Now, as the curtain lifts, travel beckons and the luxury traveller particularly is enthralled by the sheer novelty that the place has to offer. It is like an uncut diamond that has so much to offer and such little pretension about what it has.

From the buzzing rooftops of Havana down to the Garden of the Queen’s thriving underwater web of life, it is indeed a place where as celebrated author Graham Greene claimed “anything is possible in Havana”. Adorned with fine Spanish Colonial architecture the old parts have magnificent churches and reconstructed Spanish-style mansions that still stand tall in the stunning plazas of Catedral, Armas and Vieja.

This Caribbean metropolis is a mélange of noble monuments and hip-gyrating music that has few cultural equals. Whether you choose to stay in a resort or a redesigned Baroque mansion, be sure to knock down ice-cold mojitos that come in an amazing variety of concoctions and blends and visit one of the famed Cuban cigar factories and roll yourself a cigar. This is a place to just sit back, relax and saunter around places like La Habana Vieja, a Spanish complex and shake a leg at night when the bars and the streets come alive with music, dance and conversation.

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