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Post by tod2 on Dec 7, 2017 8:39:44 GMT
These recent photos give a better idea of the flat layout. Yes, I can see why I would also put the telephone on the washtub. What smart spotless white pointed shoes  The old geezer looks like a pleasant person. Looking across to the opposite building with a rooftop area - did you ever see anyone up there also enjoying the view of your building? Kerouac, you did a wonderful 'blue' job hi-lighting those water tanks. I would love to be able to do that! |
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Post by mickthecactus on Dec 7, 2017 8:42:59 GMT
These recent photos give a better idea of the flat layout. Yes, I can see why I would also put the telephone on the washtub. What smart spotless white pointed shoes The old geezer looks like a pleasant person. Looking across to the opposite building with a rooftop area - did you ever see anyone up there also enjoying the view of your building? Griswold shoes......... |
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Post by mossie on Dec 7, 2017 9:06:50 GMT
That blow up panorama is magnificent.................. and frightening at the same time, looks like a bomb has dropped.
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Post by lagatta on Dec 7, 2017 15:02:27 GMT
It is very strange to frame a perfume ad. I remember seeing that one often in the métro here, some years ago. And the macaron tablecloth is just weird. But that place is so much cleaner than the other one.
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 7, 2017 16:10:48 GMT
Would I consider the independent option on a return visit to Cuba? I do not think I have the confidence to do that in Cuba. Mainly because we do not speak the language. If we went with our friends that do speak Spanish, we would probably look at that option first as we did when we went to Costa Rica. We enjoy being on our own schedule and having the option to seek out the sites and restaurants that interest us, so I do really like the independent option. I read your response with interest, Mich, as I think it sums up how many of us feel about visiting a country where we'll have a language problem. That is one way that the internet has blown travel wide open -- it's given us the ability to better pick out places to stay, so able to start a visit on a firmer footing. For those who wonder if our revolutionary hero/landlord was still dressed in military fatigues like El Lider Maximo, the answer is no. I was engaged in conversation with El Dueño when Kerouac covertly took that picture, and I'm very glad to see it. I do know Kerouac was disappointed not to have captured him on the morning we took possession of the apartment, when he met us downstairs attired in dazzling white and sporting heavy gold jewelry. That blow up panorama is magnificent.................. and frightening at the same time, looks like a bomb has dropped. Thanks, Mossie. When I took that picture, I figured it wouldn't be worth keeping, since we'd taken so many other shots from the windows. But when I saw it full-sized, I realized it did an ace job of showing the reality of central Havana. And the macaron tablecloth is just weird. No, no indeed! We were in love with the apartment from the moment we saw it, and the tablecloth just cinched the deal! |
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Post by lagatta on Dec 8, 2017 14:51:06 GMT
Oh, I like that apartment too - it is very cute, and the owner has done a lot with what was available to him. I also have a kitschy "Paris" themed vinyl tablecloth in my kitchen, all old hotel baggage stickers and drawings of touristic sites. The colours are lovely and all my friends like it, though it is a festival of clichés.
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Post by kerouac2 on Dec 12, 2017 6:32:51 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Dec 12, 2017 14:15:42 GMT
Bixa had a lot of practice. Clearly she didn't lose her touch. (although there were times I feared she might lose her mind  ) |
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Post by lagatta on Dec 12, 2017 14:43:25 GMT
At least mint is an effing weed, and easy to grow anywhere, on a patch of greyfield or a pot on a ledge.
Yes, very appealing!
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Post by lugg on Dec 12, 2017 19:24:34 GMT
Fascinating , the cart of plantains really appeals to me probably because it is a food I love to eat and I have had it so rarely. I hesitate to say this as maybe I'm mistaken but there seems to be a much greater availability re variety of alcohol rather than food ? Anyway - what food did you have that was wow if any ?
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Post by lagatta on Dec 12, 2017 20:09:31 GMT
I don't know where you live - no Caribbean shops?
In terms of rum, Cuba has always been a major producer - think they produced more rum and cigars than basic foodstuffs. Probably the other forms of booze are for the tourist trade. Though I'm a wino (hic!) and think I'd be ill-served there. There are grapevines on high ground where they also grow coffee, but there isn't a lot of production yet.
I claim dirty-old-lady privilege to admire the lovely young man in the chic suit in the photo with an array of booze.
And I very much like the formal shirts with fine pleats men wear in the Caribbean and other Hispano-American countries. They look very chic without being overheated in clothing designed for the UK and Northern continental Europe.
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 12, 2017 20:24:38 GMT
You hit that nail on the head, Lugg! We were amazed at how alcohol was sold everywhere, even in sandwich shops sometimes. That was often in bottle form, rather than cocktails, but it was still disconcerting to go into a (sort-of) supermarket with hardly any variety and lacking many basic items, but that had a fairly extensive liquor selection. As far as wow, the afore-mentioned lobster and the Soviet fare, but the local cuisine needs mention. We were pleasantly surprised at one of those giant group feeds that were part of a bus tour. There we were served typical Cuban food which, even under the circumstances, was nicely prepared and quite good. We greatly enjoyed La Bonita (if that's the right name -- see #5), which is one of the many paladares (privately run restaurants) that are all over Havana. Having had such a good experience there twice, meaning a total of four different main dishes, I'd definitely be willing to try more paladares on a return trip to Havana. Continuing on with a little more on the places Kerouac covered in his last post ~ We mostly went into this place as fact-finders. We weren't hungry, but were curious about the menu. This tiny restaurant on a residential street apparently also rented out rooms. We ordered our beers and asked to see the menu. (Beer is always super perfect cold in Havana.) As Kerouac pointed out, the prices were high. It appeared to be the typical cuisine, but really, we ate very well for less elsewhere and had generous portions. Perhaps the trough-sized portions in this place appeal to younger backpackers.  The owner's husband? I rather felt he lowered the tone ~  Here you can see how small the place is. I was sitting below the statue in the niche and Kerouac was back to back with the man with outstretched arm ~  Oh, good Kerouac! I failed to get the name of that lovely bar with the charming restaurant and patio areas. That had been museum day and we were slogging through the tourist district in the heat. When Kerouac stopped in front of a rather glum and plain ice cream shop and said "Let's get a beer here", I thought the heat had gone to his head. We went in, though, and saw that beer was indeed served. Then we noticed there was a nice-looking area further back, so wound up having a pleasant experience. It turned out that the place occupies a corner, with the ice cream shop facing one corner, the nice bar, restaurant, and patio seating in the middle, and the part with the La Mina sign and outdoor seating on the other corner. |
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Post by lagatta on Dec 12, 2017 21:44:07 GMT
I really like the look of the last place. Take it the food was good?
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Post by mich64 on Dec 13, 2017 2:15:13 GMT
Fabulous photographs and I am enjoying reading your experiences.
That mystery spam meat was in many of the dishes on the resort as well. I tried it once, I did not like it so I stayed away from trays with that in it as the specific taste it had flavored everything. They had bacon in the morning but they did not fully cook it, actually it looked boiled maybe. Some took pieces and asked the person cooking eggs to place their bacon on the grill.
We loved the ice cream sundae bar. They also made many delicious deserts.
Lagatta, the wines at the resort were not very good. Bixa or Kerouac did you have the opportunity to try any wine?
Coffee tequila was very popular at the resort and I did buy a bottle to bring home.
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Post by kerouac2 on Dec 13, 2017 5:08:28 GMT
No, we didn't have any wine. And I did taste the bacon one morning, because I ordered a BLT for breakfast. It was definitely... different, but I wouldn't say that it was bad. That last breakfast was at our reliable 'Arcangel' right around the corner from the apartment. |
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Post by mich64 on Dec 13, 2017 5:36:54 GMT
Reply #32, I like photos 2 & 3.
I agree about the bacon, not at all bad, but yes, different. I did get one well done slice off the slab one morning. I remember it having a smoked salty taste.
In Canada we have a lot of hickory or maple flavours in our bacon.
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Post by bjd on Dec 13, 2017 7:08:27 GMT
re wine and alcohol. I don't think the Cuban climate is really made for wine drinking or producing. Even if they manage to produce grapes at any higher altitudes, it's just not suited to wine production. If I think about it, I don't think there is any wine produced in tropical countries, at least nothing worth drinking.
At my son's wedding in Colombia, every table at the restaurant had a bottle of red wine (chilled!) because of the French side of things, and a bottle of rum. Since it was about 30° outside in the evening, the wine was mostly left. Even people like my husband and me, who don't drink hard liquor or Coke, ended up drinking Cuba Libres. I'm glad I didn't have to pay for the wine, which is very expensive there.
From these pictures, I think if I went to Cuba, I would generally avoid meat and try to stick to fruit and veggies, if possible.
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Post by lagatta on Dec 13, 2017 10:38:54 GMT
Yes, only certain microclimates - at high altitudes - can produce wine at those latitudes. There is Brazilian wine, but that is from the far south where the climate is more similar to the Southern Cone countries.
Vines were introduced by the Catholic Church in many places.
That breakfast place is appealing, with its little nooks, and obviously the resident cats and plants.
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 13, 2017 14:47:02 GMT
Fabulous photographs and I am enjoying reading your experiences. That mystery spam meat was in many of the dishes on the resort as well. I tried it once, I did not like it so I stayed away from trays with that in it as the specific taste it had flavored everything. Bixa or Kerouac did you have the opportunity to try any wine? Thanks, Mich! The first "meat" I tried in Cuba was at the airport. It was on a bun and billed as chorizo. It had zero taste. I accompanied it with my first Cuban beer, so all was not lost. We also had street sandwiches fixed panini style. This made the air-like bread crusty and the very mild taste of the fillings somewhat resembled ham and cheese. As far as weird tastes, our first morning we had the buffet breakfast at the Deauville Hotel. It was odd. Nothing tasted specifically nasty, but all of it was a turn-off. This was our introduction to the poor food and service to be found in government-run establishments. Later we found that the bar at the Deauville kept up that same bad standard. This worked to our benefit, though, as we were in the bar because that's where the wifi was. The high level of indifference meant that we didn't have to buy a beverage for the right to be there. We did look at the wines in the "anything store" as part of our fact-finding mission. If we'd seen a Cuban wine, we might have tried it, but mostly the wine was from Argentina and Chile and the same brands I can get in Mexico. I don't think the Cuban climate is really made for wine drinking or producing. You're probably right about wine production, but bars and restaurants in Havana were so highly air-conditioned that any drink would be okay. Really, they're so refrigerated that you might find yourself asking for hot buttered rum, thus neatly honoring both the country and your desire to get warm. That breakfast place is appealing, with its little nooks, and obviously the resident cats and plants. It was very pleasant, LaGatta, & as a privately owned enterprise, it offered enormous contrast in quality and service to the grim and surly government-run places. |
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Post by kerouac2 on Dec 13, 2017 15:22:55 GMT
From these pictures, I think if I went to Cuba, I would generally avoid meat and try to stick to fruit and veggies, if possible. The basic meat in Cuba is pork, and there were a few examples in my meals that the pigs had a very tough life (Hotel Inglaterra notably).
However, at the tourist group restaurant to which we went far from Havana (we'll get to that report soon), which Bixa mentioned in passing, the roasted pork was really outstanding, so you never know...
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Post by lugg on Dec 13, 2017 20:02:34 GMT
Enjoying the latest additions - Café Arcangel looks very nice indeed. Thanks for the info re my question Bixa  Lagatta ? nope not here in my rural sparsely populated county, which is predominantly White British ie plus 98 % . Although oddly there is a garage shop in an isolated place which occasionally has plantains along with other exotic fruit and veg. Never really understood why but now I feel I need to find out and maybe also post some pics cos it really is so remarkable in this part of the world. |
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Post by kerouac2 on Dec 23, 2017 23:04:22 GMT
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Post by kerouac2 on Dec 23, 2017 23:08:27 GMT
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 7, 2021 3:26:05 GMT
Got an email this evening with an excited notice that a Cuban car rental company is now online. The whole email is in Spanish and includes a 5% discount on my first rental along with a link to their new website. I include part of the email below, as it's so cheery. No idea how they got my email address. Here is the link to the website, which is in Spanish, English, and Italian (click on language choice in the upper right): yourcubacar.com/The site is full of useful information -- quite reassuring! |
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