Sights Worth Seeing

I’ve felt quite lost without my Kindle but have managed to master downloading books onto my laptop – the only problem being that in strong light, it’s almost impossible to read anything! But the problem was sort of solved when I found a second hand copy of a 450 page Patricia Cornwell novel sitting amongst a load of revolutionary tomes in one of the beautiful plazas that abound in Old Havana. Ms Cornwell is not my favourite author but she will have to do for the moment

Everywhere you look there are beautiful old houses often with beautiful courtyards.

It is amazing to think that many of these European styled buildings and wonderful plazas in this part of Havana date back as far as the mid  16^th century, only a few decades after Cuba was first occupied by the Spanish. I have to keep reminding myself that I am in the Caribbean and not the more historic parts of Florence, Madrid or Seville.

For sure, Havana relies heavily on tourism and must continue to do so as it’s a big and increasing revenue earner. But there are no overt signs of commercialism. I am happy to report that I have not seen a single Macdonalds – yet. As the doors open to let American tourists in, let’s hope that, somehow, it can stay this way.

Only a few steps away from the busier tourist streets, I found this man happily teaching kids how to model in clay

And this young lad learning his art by trying to copy pictures that are for sale on the pavement. Lovely!

Before I came here I thought there may only be a few of the classic old gas guzzling cars left and these would be exclusively for the use of tourists.

This is only partly true as there are still many of the clapped out monsters around used solely for personal use. Later, I am going to take one and head into Old Havana again to see what it looks like at night. It could be interesting!

Hasta mañana

Richard