Special Havana

Bus trip to Havana. Visit the main sights of the colonial part of Cuba’s capital, declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. You will see squares, fortresses, palaces, and buildings erected by Spanish colonizers in the 16th–19th centuries. Visit places connected with Hemingway, including his House-Museum. Visit a Havana cigar factory or rum museum. Lunch in one of Old Havana’s restaurants. Free time is provided for souvenir shopping at the special Almacenes de San José market and for an independent walk through Old Havana (streets, port, Almacén de Madeira y Tabaco brewery, etc.). After sightseeing, a room is provided for the group in a city hotel to change clothes. Dinner in a restaurant. Show at the open-air Tropicana cabaret. Return to Varadero. Passport required! Admission to the show is for persons aged 16 and older.

Adult price 165$

Includes visits to:

• The Capitol, built in 1929 by Italians from Italian Carrara marble.
• The Grand Opera and Ballet Theater named after Alicia Alonso, built in 1837 and once among the three most beautiful and famous theaters in the world.
• Central Park, surrounded by four famous hotels and with a monument to José Martí in the center.
• Obispo Street – Havana’s Arbat, where the “Floridita” bar is located, proclaimed in 1953 as one of the seven most famous bars in the world. This bar was Hemingway’s favorite place. The first chapters of *The Old Man and the Sea*, for which he received the Nobel Prize in 1954, were written there.
• The monument to Sancho Panza.
• The Ambos Mundos Hotel, where Hemingway always stayed from 1932 to 1939 and where several chapters of *To Have and Have Not* and *For Whom the Bell Tolls* were written. Now it is a museum.
• The Florida Hotel, one of the brightest examples of colonial style, where Isadora Duncan stayed, and the Marquis Prado de Ameno Hotel, an old palace built in 1760.

The excursion also includes visits to four squares:

Plaza de Armas, where are located: the Palace of the General Captains, the oldest fortress on the American continent – Real Fuerza, the Santa Isabel Hotel (former palace of Count Santovenia, where former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and many Hollywood stars stayed twice), the monument to the Father of the Nation Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, who began the liberation war against Spain on October 10, 1868, and the chapel with the ceiba tree, near which Havana was founded in 1519.

Plaza de la Catedral (Cathedral Square), where the Havana Cathedral is located, which housed Columbus’s remains for 103 years, and three palaces of two counts and one marquis (today one houses the Patio restaurant, another the Museum of Colonial Art, and the third a museum, shops, and administrative centers).

Plaza Vieja (Old Square), where there are old palaces, the famous La Muralla brewery, Escorial café, and restaurants, one of which hosted American singer Madonna’s 58th birthday celebration on August 16 this year.

Plaza San Francisco de Asís, where there is a monument to San Francisco, a famous church, one of the oldest in Havana, the Lonja del Comercio (former Stock Exchange), the Fountain of Lions, a monument to Chopin, and a monument to Caballero de París. In the inner courtyard of the square is a Greek Orthodox church.