This is what "home-stays" are all about. Great room, super-quiet opening up to a terrace festooned with local flora and cooled by an ocean breeze. The family, three generations, are witnesses to all the drama of Cuba from Castro's ascension to his recent passing. Gear up your Spanish for detail-rich conversations on Cuba's contemporary history.....including Castro's visit to this very residence back in the day. Breakfast was enough to fuel day-long walks around the city center, forays further afield to Moncada Barracks and San Juan Hill, and a pilgrimage to "Cobre" where Cuba's patron...another apparition of the Virgin Mary....is memorialized in a gold-plated statue high in the altar. If Brazil can have one, and Mexico...no to mention Portugal and France...so can Cuba. This end of Cuba was the center of all rebellion against Habana-based authority...be it Spanish, American, or pre-Castro Cuba. Just far enough to conspire in relative safety yet close enough to strike the capital when the time was ripe. Where Castro's ashes now rest, next to Marti....no reference to Karl Marx anywhere in sight, in all of the city.

Habana and the "Northern Circuit" which includes Pinar del Rio/Vinedos, Matanzas/Varadero, Santa Clara, Trinidad, and Cienfuegos is a very full menu to choose from to get a sense of Cuba today but to get the complete picture you need to also the middle (Camaguey, Holguin) of this the largest island in the Caribbean and reach all the way down to the "far east", Santiago de Cuba. Camaguey is a city experiencing a budding revitalization...a direct result of the normalization of Cuba with "capitalist" countries over the past few years, tourism benefitting most. We stayed at Vito's "casa" which is quite ample inside....interior patio, very high-ceilings, very comfortable lodgings, and terrace sun-deck. Spotless and the Italian touch in evidence here and there. The center of Camaguey is nice enough and the people there, as everywhere in Cuba, welcoming. If your Spanish is good enough you will come to appreciate their sense of wit much as you would conversing in English with the Irish. This is cattle country. However, beef is scarce...for a number of reasons to complicated to discuss here...and, for locals, unobtainably expensive. If you can rein in your sense of social solidarity for just one meal, you must indulge yourself with the beef tenderloin served up at the "Carmen" restaurant ( sometime available, sometimes not). You will... maybe... assuage your guilt with beef equal to the best in the world (reference: Argentina, Uruguay, Normandie, Umbria, USA- Prime) . Grass fed, no feed-lot nonsense.....como dios manda.

Nice lodgings, bountiful breakfast, a few blocks from the town center and just around the corner from some of the best private restaurants ( "paladares") in Cuba. ( Note: not all cities in Cuba are as well endowed with private dining facilities ...the "state" makes it more difficult for "paladares" to succeed than the restaurants they, the State, owns directly.) Assistance when need for local tours and transfers to other points in Cuba. Trinidad is indeed a colonial gem slowly restoring its former luster ...think of St. Augustine FL before it became marred by too many souvenir shops. Young backpackers have plenty to choose from in terms of nocturnal pursuits... I was told. This is a statement I could not personally aver since I have long since departed that demographic and its associated behavior patterns. Nice enough beach nearby (Ancon) and a fully-restored plantation house about half an hour out of town.... which for amateur historians of the Caribbean is breath-taking.

Located in Habana's "Centro" (a good 12 to 15 blocks from Parque Central where "Historic Habana" begins) but what you give up in proximity to "what's happening" you more than get back in space and comfort..at street-level. (Note: The closer you get to " Historic Habana" the likelier you are to have to walk up two-three...or as many as eight...floors to get to your lodgings.) As with all "casa" in Cuba, this one was also spotlessly clean with the usual fan and air conditioner combination to enable you to set ambient cooling conditions exactly to your liking. Immediate neighborhood is in the throes of "gentrification": you can easily visualize what Habana must have been in its heyday...then its period of benign neglect ...and now what it will soon be again. In its glory days ( 40's and 50's) it was larger and more populous than any city in the U.S. except for New York, Philadelphia, Chicago. Student's of period architecture, take notice.

Superb accommodations; best casa we stayed in while in-country. The attention to detail in the lodging room is easily equal to any five-star hotel. Any quibble I might have had was instantly attended to. The central patio bohio with palm-leaf thatched roof is a work of art and reason enough by itself to stay here. A bit distant from downtown...easily resolved with a "classic car" taxi that will take you and pick you up at any time you set. Varadero a bit further off but similarly accesible with a classic car taxi for a reasonable rate.

Nice lodgings, close to everything. Very neat and clean, helpful hosts in arranging transportation to surrounding points of interest. Note: Bathroom is shared, not ensuite.