Hello globetrotters,
Remember that previous post, where I mentioned to bring documentation into Cuba? One of those documents should be your itinerary. We got really lucky and didn’t get stopped and questioned by customs. However, you should know that sometimes you will have to prove you came to help the local people, or whatever the reason you picked. You can’t just be laying on the beach all day.
Below is our itinerary. I will go into a couple of details on what we would have changed below too.
On the schedule, you can see that we had some tours booked. We also had some landmarks we wanted to see. On Day 1, we never walked to any landmarks. We explored Osbipo, which is the busy, local street in Habana Vieja. Then, we went on the Vintage Car Tour, which took us around town and stopped at a couple of landmarks anyways (review soon).
Then, the next day, we went on a Cigar tour, which didn’t take us to any landmarks, but took us to a Cigar factory, Cigar shop and Cigar campo. All things we wanted to do anyways in our spare time. Afterwards, we had our photoshoot, which took most of the day. While we were on the photoshoot, our photographer gave us some history lessons on the landmarks too (review soon).
The next morning (Saturday), we went rogue and stopped by the Malecon. We originally had Malecon at night, but most places closes at 7 P, so we figured the Malecon would be empty too. We walked that morning to the Malecon, and although it had zero vendors unlike Puerto Vallarta, I’m still glad we went in the morning. I felt safer that way. On the way back, we took Avenida Belgica, which reminded me of Barcelona; A long sidewalk is lined with Cuban artists.
We completely skipped the beach. One of our guides told us the beaches near Old Havana are really rocky; the best beach was in some neighboring city 2 hours. We didn’t want to go out that far just for the beach.
Last official day was Sunday. This was really slow for us. We tried going to the Museo Casa de Benito Juarez. However, when we got to the corner, it was an empty building. We ended walking around old Havana. If you really wanted, you could have taken a day tour to a neighboring city. I’m sure it would have been fun.
We would have gone if we booked the tour in the U.S. However, we were sure if our credit card information was secure, since we had to register a WiFi card that’s linked to our passport. We weren’t into the risk, which is fine with us. In the end, we had a really good time, and I felt like we were getting used to the Cuban life.
I hope you enjoy your trip there. Let me know how it goes.
Ciao,
Amy
amy 