✯ Daily Travel Destination: Havana, Cuba

For over 50 years, Cuba has been off-limits to U.S. citizens. We have been able to travel almost anywhere, but Cuba has been forbidden. However, this year, select tour companies begin Cuba travel excursions for Americans.

Columbus discovered Cuba in 1492, the largest of the Caribbean Islands, situated 90 miles south of Florida’s Key West.   It is where Ernest Hemingway wrote “The Old Man And The Sea”, “For Whom The Bell Tolls” and “A Moveable Feast.”  Travelers can now explore Hemingway’s home, now a small museum, called Finca la Vigia.

In addition to this literary component is another of Cuba’s unique offerings: the natural/ecological dimension. Explore Viñales, a fertile valley where tobacco, taro and bananas are grown. Also, there are plants, trees, birds endemic to this area. The Viñales Valley has been on UNESCO’s World Heritage List since November 1999 as a cultural landscape enriched by traditional farm and village architecture. Old-fashioned farming methods are still used in Viñales, notably to grow tobacco.

Editors, CityRoom, via JustLuxe.com