When I first arrived in Habana at the beginning of my trip in Cuba it was incredibly hot but with dark heavy clouds - there were intermittent downpours and thunder and lightning. Alongside the road from the airport to town there were lots of revolutionary slogans and murals. On the way I passed through Revolution Square, which looks like something out of Orwell's '1984', with the various tall government ministry buildings surrounding a central monument and statue...

Viñales Valley is in the picturesque tobacco-growing region of western Cuba - Pinar del Río province. I took a day trip there from Habana at the weekend - these trips are only supposed to be for Cuban people and the price is a small fraction of the price of the same trip during the week, which is advertised to tourists! Our guide for the day, Nelson, was a friendly, funny guy who was open about his opinions on Cuba. He joked about the definition of communism -...

Santa Clara is the last resting place of El Che, Ernesto 'Che' Guevara - there is a large monument, a museum and a mausoleum. It is an interesting and tasteful tribute to him, set away from the town and free from souvenir sellers and suchlike. Che was killed in Bolivia in 1967 along with many other Cuban guerilla fighters, on a failed mission to initiate a revolution there. They were captured and interrogated there for a day by a combination of Bolivian and Amer...

I was staggered by Cienfuegos - I felt like I'd been transported to a different country in a different era altogether - there was one beautiful big building after another, mostly in good condition; there was a three-kilometre long avenue, half of which had a wide pedestrian walkway in the middle; there was even a long, pretty shopping street! Among the impressive, colourful buildings that bordered the huge main square, Parque Martí, were the cathedral, a govern...

Trinidad is a popular tourist spot in Cuba with many busloads of tourists coming on day trips from resorts and from Habana each day - it was low season for tourism in Cuba and, before Trinidad, I had barely seen any other tourists so it felt strange, quite different. Trinidad is very pretty - the streets are wide and paved with light-coloured cobble stones and many of the buildings are painted in bright colours. The Plaza Mayor main square is very elaborate with ...