Up and down the streets of the old town

Today was our first organised tour with Enrique taking us for a walk through the old town.  As you can imagine, there's lots of old buildings, a police station built to look like an old fortress so it blends in, some cathedrals and some very nice squares.  Pretty much standard as far as old towns go.  Some of the highlights:

- Plaza de Armas with its annually renewed wood cobbled road (a tradition started back in the day because the lady of the house couldn't enjoy her siestas due to horse hoofs on stone), book stalls, and man selling peanuts in rolled up paper cones
- Plaza Vieja because of its tremendous transformation since the 1990s from ruins to dilapidated charm.  The city historian seems to be a very powerful bloke.  When Russia and the Eastern European bloc fell in early 1990s, Cuba's economy was devastated.  Rolling power blackouts were the norm, food was so scarce that our guide remembers being allowed one piece of sweet potato bread a day, water and sugar for supper and vitamin pills being issued to stop people getting sick.  The country was opened up to tourism to rescue the economy and restoration of the old town a big part of attracting tourists.  The money earned from tourism in the old town goes back into restoration projects and social improvements.
- the many courtyards that you can catch glimpses of as you wander the streets
- the statue called "the conversation" and many other artworks and galleries
- the mix of tourism and every day life.  You're just as likely to find a primary school as a cafe in the many squares

We decided to treat ourselves to coffee at one of the nicer hotels  (Iberostar).  Whilst the coffee and ham croquettes were very nice, the service was atrocious.  We found much better service and excellent food at O'Reilly 304 for lunch.   We shared a Peruvian ceviche (almost as good as one from Peru ), empanadillas  (nice, but nothing to write home about), and some to die for tacos with chicken, guacamole, capsicums, some other stuff and freshly squeezed lime.  We also watched as various cocktails were made - and noted that we'll go back for one of those!

Our afternoon outing was to the Museum of the Revolution.  It's pricey and mostly just pictures of various events and a few artifacts scattered round the place.  There were a number of women prominent in the revolution and it was pleasing to see their virtues extolled alongside the Castros,  Ceinfuegos,  and Guevara.  It's mostly in Spanish with random English translations but I got the gist.  There's a list of all the terrible things that the CIA have done,  including treating the clouds with chemicals to make the sugar cane crop fail.  Seems quite far-fetched but I haven't read enough to know if it's true.   The two highlights were first caricatures of various US presidents and second the tank that Fidel apparently sank the US ship Houston during the Bay of Pigs.  Not a mention of the Cuban missile crisis.