Havana has always been a seducer. And on her th birthday this year, she shows no sign of dimming attraction. Walking the streets of Spanish colonial, art deco, art nouveau and modern buildings is like stepping across the black and white squares of a checkerboard. Around the corner, a ruin slumps, a pedicab swerves a tarmac chasm and corral of cats, wooden scaffolding pins up a city block, and fruit and veg sellers call out amid decades of debris.
Grab a rum planchao rum in a carton — often cheaper than water — and head down to the seawall to hang with the locals who chat, flirt, sing, and fish long into the night as the moonlight flickers on the ocean swell. Ivan Chefs Justo serves fresh seafood risottos, stellar roast suckling pig and other hearty meat dishes with faultless service. This tiny restaurant, stuffed full of paintings, plants and furniture in an 18th-century home, is unmissable. The curries and naan, all cooked and baked by a Delhi-born chef, bring flavor and authenticity to this Bollywood-meets-Buena-Vista-Social-Club Indian restaurant.
Cocktails are a cut above the food. Combine with its pepped-up tapas, or boozy drinks, too. Turn into this cool, popular corner-of-a-plaza bar for its signature basil mojito. The old quarter is best navigated on foot or by pedicab. Neighbouring districts are gritty residential Centro to the west; further west el Vedado brims with porticoed mansions, bars, galleries, restaurants and music haunts.
East of Old Havana, across the bay, are castles and the golden-sand Eastern Beaches. From the old world architecture, must-try restaurants and cabaret shows of Havana to the pristine beaches and tobacco farms of the countryside, there are the sites you need to see in Cuba.
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