Before heading up to the bar the previous evening, Jon had spotted a guy waiting outside with his classic car. He sorted out a price and the guy agreed to be there for us at 9am that morning. Sure enough, we looked out at 8am and the guy was already there ready and waiting. For 20 CUC he would take us around for just over an hour. We left the itinerary to him, which was a good move. The roof down, sun shining, shades on - we cruised along to the residential area to see the French Chateau-style former residence of the Baccardi family. On from there, we headed out of town to the local cemetery. Whilst it might not sound so appealing, just like in Buenos Aires Recoletta cemetery, the Santiago de Cuba one contains all the lates and greats from Cuba's heyday. The Bacardi family are well respresented, although the company has long since fallen out with the Castro regime when all the industries were nationalised, there is still a reverence of the name associated with the famous rum that originated with Emilio, an Italian immigrant who came to Cuba. Flying in the breeze we also saw the familiar black and red flag marking out deceased members of the 26 July revolutionary movement (so named after the date that Castro and friends attempted a disastrous attack on the Moncada barracks - disastrous because they cocked-up so badly, rather than a disaster for Batista at the time). A rather more jolly tomb with guitar and hat mark the resting place of Compay Segundo, of Buena Vista Social Club fame.

Yet the most famous and revered of all the inhabitants of the cemetery has to be the writer Jose Marti, whose mortal remains are located in an ornate mausoleum. It is impossible to visit Cuba, without coming across the legacy of the man; in every town, there is a bronze or bust or main square named after the great man. Every half an hour, a ceremony of the changing of the guards occurs and with precise goose stepping actions they solemnly take their place, watching over their country's poetic hero. The scene is quite moving and you can look down to where his casket is set, draped in the Cuban Flag, with a rooflight in the ceiling that permits the sun to shine down on him, and a vase of fresh flowers beside him (which relate to his wish to be in the sun with the smell of fresh flowers with him for all time).

After the cemetery, we continued our classic car tour around Santiago De Cuba, past the Bacardi factory (which now produces Cuban brands of rum), along the Port area then into the centre of Santiago de Cuba itself, visiting the main squares along the way.

A brief stroll around the centre was soon cut short, the searing heat too much to continue our exploration, we headed back to the main square for a well-earned and refreshing fresh lime soda on the terrace bar of the Hotel Casa Grande. From this spot we could watch the world go by, musicians played in the centre of the square, we could look across to the balcony where Fidel Castro gave a victory speech on the first day after Batista fled from Cuba. It also felt a little surreal to be sitting at the Hotel that I'd only just read about in Graham Greene's Our Man In Havana. I could picture the scene of Wormold having a drink here and marking the postcard with an 'X' for which was his room at the hotel.

Deciding that we'd had enough walking in the heat, we called in at the Cuba Tour shop next to the hotel and found that we could purchase tickets for the Cigar Factory (maybe we would finally get our visit!). We realised it was some way out of town, so went in search of our man in the main square with his classic car. For a hastily agreed extra 20 CUC, he would take us back out beyond the cemetery to where the cigar factory was, then on to the Moncada barracks and back to the hotel.

At the cigar factory, we're tagged onto a huge group of German tourists, and as the only 2 English speakers our guide carefully shepherded us to the best spot so that he could do his general spiel in German, followed by an Explanation in English for us. The majority of the workers are women and they sit at work stations that resemble old fashioned wooden school desks. When we arrive they are singing along to the radio. There's also someone employed to read them the newspaper out loud. The aroma of the fresh tobacco fills our nostrils and we watch the women's fast and economical movements as they check and grade the quality of the leaves. Next we see where the graded leaves are hand-rolled into the cigars, an outer leaf is then added and this is then put in a press to make sure they all have the same perfectly uniform size. A separate room has the cigars grouped together according to size and colour (in a box of 25 for example, all the cigars should be exactly the same colour), the bands are then precisely added around the finished item and the whole lot are finally quality checked. It seems no surprise that these are such a prestigious and premium item, given the labour intensive process and attention to detail.

Throughout the tour, the women lift up bits of newspaper either from their laps or on the desks and show a bundle of 10 cigars - pssst, they whisper, eyes are raised, a nod and a wink and you can buy them for 10 CUC. It warms the cockles of our heart to see a good black market economy thriving in their utopian egalitarian system. We decide not to buy the contraband goods (although some of the Germans were doing some brisk business), not because we disapprove, but rather if we are to take some home then it's worth paying a bit more for the final perfect article.

The visit to Moncada Barracks was our final personalised tour stop - rather bizarrely this is now a school and to enter the museum you creep past a classroom full of children. The museum was one of the better ones, if rather gruesome at times (torture instruments are on display and photographs of the dead bodies where they fell at the Moncada barracks attack). The overall history of the revolution and sequence of events are well documented and the visit seems to firmly cement in our minds the main events and timelines, key players and locations that we've seen over our tour of the length and breadth of Cuba in the last 3 weeks. Back to our hotel in the classic car and a final relax by the pool provides a fitting finale to a wonderful exploration of a fascinating country.