After a busy day exploring Havana’s historic sites, there is little more relaxing than enjoying a mojito on the expansive colonnaded veranda and the well-kept lawn terrace of Hotel Nacional. Palm trees bring welcome shade for your ringside view of the Malecon – the Cuban capital’s 9km open […]
For the buildings that do still stand, the long process of restoring Habana Vieja has begun. City Historian Eusebio Leal Spengler – who has been working in the city since 1982 when the district gained World Heritage status from Unesco – set up a holding company called Habaguanex […]
Rather than the cobbled streets, lively squares and colourfully painted colonial era homes and public buildings from tourist brochures, my first experience of Habana Vieja (old Havana) was that of dilapidation. I walked through narrow, sewage-laden alleys with crumbling buildings that looked like they could topple at any […]
Towering 25-storeys high, the Habana Libre hotel is a distinctive landmark on the Cuban capital’s skyline. Although a short taxi ride from the cobbled old town – a Unesco World Heritage site – it is still a popular place to stay for tourists visiting this beautiful Caribbean island. […]
Guest blog by Oliver Clark On my first visit to Sydney I was keen to see what remained of the city’s early colonial past, after all this was where the first European settlement of Australia began back in 1788. I had little time for research but assumed that there […]
Head out to the theatre, a sports match or even a village fete and chances are that lurking in the background will be a dedicated band of volunteers ready to leap into action if a member of public falls ill. For the most part they’ll be seen dancing […]
Travelling across Romania, the ghost of Nicolae Ceaușescu is always present. In town after town we drove through we found the hallmarks of the communist dictator’s stamp on urban planning – grimy, shoe-box apartment blocks within easy reach of equally grotty industrial estates. During a nine-day trip to […]
By Oliver Clark, in Budapest In 896AD the Magyars, a host of nomadic tribesmen from Siberia and the ancestors of today’s Hungarians, first arrived in what is today Budapest and decided it seemed a good place to make their home. And travelling around the Hungarian capital on a […]
After a long weekend of stag party shenanigans in Valencia I was shattered. I couldn’t even look at a beer, let alone drink one. And my body was rejecting all but the plainest of foods. So arriving in Taragona, about two hours north of Valencia by train, chilling […]
For history fans, a trip to Istanbul takes some beating. Here visitors can discover two great cities for the price of one, with both Byzantine Constantinople and Ottoman Istanbul waiting to be explored. To walk the streets of Turkey’s commercial capital today is to take a stroll through […]
Past In The Present 