An early start for our morning flight to Havana. 'A small contribution' to the check in guy secured us seats together - we felt rather mean for handing over only 10 CUC when we got on the plane and realised we had the front row of business class! After the short flight, we took our first trip in a beaten up Lada taxi, from the domestic terminal to the International terminal. Upon discovering that there wasn't actually the promised left luggage area we'd bee...

Farewell Vinales We begin to organise ourselves this morning, in readiness for the next stage of our trip.We enjoy a final breakfast and are surprised when a twin prop plane swoops low past us during breakfast.Any smiles and explains that it's the newspaper delivery; the Sunday papers are dropped down onto the baseball pitch, ready for distribution to the population. We take a final walk around Vinales, bumping into El Trencho along the way, he comes over to gr...

Buick to the future No visit to Havana is complete without a trip in one of the gas guzzling, politically incorrect and undoubtedly beautiful classic American cars. I had my heart set on a blue convertible, but things weren't looking too promising. It was our final day in Havana and the weather was menacing, a huge storm rolled in from the sea and fat heavy raindrops were hurled at the restaurant windows during breakfast. Plan B was raised up to plan A status...

Tanks for the memories The museum of the Revolution is situated, perhaps with deliberate irony, at the former President's Palace. You can still see the bullet holes in the marble walls half way up the staircase, made when students from the University of Havana stormed the palace against Batista, without success at that time. The exhibits provide an informative, if one-sided, view of the recent history in Cuba with the main focus on the events surrounding Castr...

Time is all relative So we left France on Saturday and flew to the UK - change of time zone goes back one hour (so far so good). Overnight on Saturday the clocks went back another hour for the end of British summer time... okay, still following that and got the benefit of a later start to catch our flight. Land in Havana, the virgin crew tell us the new time, so we put our watches back another 5 hours. The iphone picked up the local signal and concurred, so ...