Vicente and Luciana are in love with Havana

Luciana and Vicente live in Brazil, but spent a few days in Cuba. The first time I saw them, they were having breakfast at Reina´s House in Havana. Right behind them, was the most typical view of this country.

After a few minutes they were ready to meet Old Havana. I was their guide in a very nice city tour. They had lots of questions and I did my best to help them understand our reality.

They loved our wooden street (calle de madera) and saw some Cubans working on the restoration program. Some of them are very experienced, but also young people contribute to the beauty of this ancient city.

It´s hard to express all those emotions portrait on their faces. Vicente and Luciana admire this Caribbean Island and it makes me feel so proud!Thanks for all those beautiful words and wish the best to you both.

And you, Luciana, keep smiling that way, especially when Vicente gets a little nervous hahaha.

¿En qué idioma es mejor escribir en el blog?

La vida es sorprendente. Ser guía de turismo es lo mejor que me ha ocurrido en la vida. Hago los recorridos en idioma ingles pero...que vueltas da la vida!! Mis últimos tres recorridos han sido en español!

 Hace unos días hice un city tour con una pareja muy linda, él es ecuatoriano y ella es alemana, aunque habla un buen español. Recorrimos las plazas de la habana vieja y pasamos un día excelente. Maravilloso, puedo decir, sol radiante, cielo azul y un clima muy bueno para deambular las románticas calles de mi Habana.
  Durante casi cinco horas vieron un habana vieja renacida y hermosa. Al terminar, les recomendé que almorzaran en Los Nardos, una paladar ubicada frente al Capitolio Nacional. Una vez leí una opinión en Tripadvisor que decía algo así como: “Restaurante precioso aunque no le acompañe la entrada al mismo. Platos gigantes, bien cocinados, precio bueno y exquisito trato. Totalmente recomendable.”

  Pronto te contaré la historia del recorrido con la hermosa y enamorada pareja de hoy. Espera la entrada en mi blog http://yourtourguideincuba.blogspot.com/

 He tomado la desición de comunicarme en los dos idiomas, tanto en mi Facebook, como Twitter y en mi blog!! ¿Crees que es una buena idea?

Lunch in Havana in an excellent restaurant

  Today was a good day. I did a city tour with a very cute couple, he is ecuatorian and she is german, but she speaks good spanish. We walked the streets of Old Havana and had a great day. Wonderful, I can say, sunshine, blue sky and a very good climate to walk around the romantic streets of my Havana.

               
   For nearly five hours  we admired a beautiful Old Havana.  At the end, I recommended them to have lunch in Los Nardos,  a “paladar”  near  to National Capitol. I once read a review on Trip Advisor saying something like: "Lovely restaurant but did not accompany the entrance to it. Giant dishes, well cooked, good price and great treatment.  Strongly recommended. "
Soon I will tell the story of the journey with this beautiful and lovely couple.  Expect it to come into my blog http://yourtourguideincuba.blogspot.com/

The Weekly family from Key West

  This was more than just a tour. For three days I shared with this family from Key West. Lots of feelings and emotions were involved in this visit. Meeting Sarah and “memories” was amazing. I´m sorry I didn´t have my camera with me. Sorry I couldn´t get such great moments.

 

   I asked for some photos and here they are, the ones taken by      Ann and Dakin, a chance to show you how they look like. I guess that mango was Pavel´s present. It was delicious! And that boat in the Zapata Swamp made me hold my breath in a tribute to tenderness.

When there is a will, there is a way.

This family left their guided tour in Havana for the last three hours of the last day in Cuba. I was yearning to find the way to show them something new, and thanks God I realized sometimes we look around, but can´t see much if there isn´t someone to help us discover the meaning and the stories hidden on the top of a tower, in a simple garden or behind a common door.

Your Tour Guide in Cuba

This is my publicity

  If you come to Havana, I'm sure you'll need the help of a guide to visit the city. I give you this information that could be useful.

  I suggest you to travel, walk and discover this romantic country: Tours in Old Havana, the modern part of the city, Viñales (in Pinar del Río) and the Zapata  Swamp (in Matanzas)

Guide service in English and Spanish, 10 CUC each hour. If you want more than one day of tour it is 7 cuc each hour.

Meeting Paola´s family

I´m used to write a few words about each tour. I love keeping those moments, a phrase, a question, a discovery. But this time I better share the words of someone else. Her name is Nora and she came to Cuba with her husband and her daughter.

We had never been to Cuba, and in 2012 decided to visit around Christmas because the temperature should be the least hot, and therefore the best, around that time. We did not know a lot about Havana and thought that taking a tour with a guide would be a great way to get to know something about the city and about Cuba in general. John had been trying to book one or two nights in a “casa particular” for the first nights in Havana and had found a highly rated B&B which unfortunately was already booked.

However, the owner of Casa Maura managed to arrange other lodgings for us, and she brought us in contact with a guide, Madelein. We did a tour that was customized to our interests starting at 2 pm. She knows a great deal about the city, and anything else you might be interested in. We are originally from Holland, and for us Havana and Cuba were “something else”. So we had lots of questions ranging from the naïve “why is there a line of people there?” to the practical “how do you negotiate with a street artist on the price of a piece of art?” and Madelein answered them all.

We toured the old city and admired the different styles of buildings and visited, among others, a famous pub where everyone leaves their autograph “la Bodeguita del Medio” and a Greek orthodox church. I really admired the sculpture of a family in which each member was “doing their own things”, but in the spirit of being together. It would seem that families in Cuba are very much like families everywhere…

 The entire day was one of the highlights of our trip and we never ran out of interesting topics of conversation. At the end of the day, we invited her to dinner, and she suggested a place that is very popular and gives value for your money. When we parted company in the evening we wished we could have had more time.
We can highly recommend this tour.