LINK TO PART ONE - FLIGHTS: AC YYC-VRA In J - Part One: Flights (Many Pics) (by aluminumcity Feb 18 2010 in Trip Reports)

Part Two - Trip To Havana

Our family elected to do the "Havana Colonial" tour on Thursday, February 11th. We had to get up very early, but it wasn't too early to have breakfast.

We went in to the hotel lobby and waited for our bus to pull up.

Our hotel in the morning sunlight

All I need for today's trip

This forecast will become even more miserable

The former is our destination


Our bus pulled up and a lady shouted out "Air Canada Vacations Havana Colonial Tour". We boarded our bus.


The large YuTong Chinese bus


Today's tour would be run by the Cuban tour company Transgaviota.

Not quite as much legroom as AC Executive


We stopped at two more hotels:




and started our journey.

About an hour in to our 2 1/2 hour journey, we pulled over to a roadside shop, that sold drinks, with piña coladas as their specialty. I paid the 2.50 CUC (convertible peso) for one of these famous piña coladas. It was pretty good, tasted fresh and real.

Roadside shop


We loaded back on to the bus after about 20 minutes.

We began to enter Le Ciudad de la Matanzas, the city of Matanzas.

I have positively no idea what this sign means


We drove until we started to arrive in to Havana.

The skyline of Havana

The edge of the land


Our lovely tour guide announced that we would visit a few places in New Havana, have lunch, and then do a walking tour of Old Havana.

We first stopped at some sort of military complex, I forget what it was called.







We also got to see old American cars!




Our second stop was the Capitolio. The capital building of Cuba, that looks suspiciously like the White House, haha. Our tour guide said this, but it's far larger and more open to the public.

The capital building in all it's glory

Statue in front of the building

The street behind the building


A few scenes from the capital area:









We stopped at the area where Fidel gave many famous speeches

Government building


Our final destination in New Havana


After a good lunch, we were taken to the beginning of our walking tour. We visited the Museum of Natural History:








After our visit there, we proceeded to walk down the street, in to a narrow street that had the bar that Ernest Hemmingway frequented.


After that, we walked down the street some more, and stopped at a gift shop to purchase various nicknacks.





During our gift shop visit, I just had to: I purchased a Che Guevara hat.


After this, we visited the famous cathedral as our last stop in Old Havana.





We then reboarded our bus, which took us to a large flea market.


The market was near the harbour

Does something look slightly off about the name of this store?


After a little shopping, we got back on the bus, and went home.

Some scenes from the busride home:



We returned around 7:30PM. It was a very enjoyable trip.

Nice towel art to return to


I really liked this trip. Havana is a very cultural city. It's simply amazing to think that so much of this is so ancient. Our whole family loved it.

Thanks for reading, everyone!