AIC's CUBA ITINERARY
Sunday, 17 May 2015 To Friday, 22 May 2015
[1] Sunday, 17 May 2015 - Havana City
[12:45 pm - 1:45 pm] - Arrive in Havana
[3:00 pm - 4:00 pm] - check in to hotel
[5:00 pm - 6:00 pm] - Orientation and familiarization with the city of Havana and
preservation in Cuba in general. As time allows we will do a walking tour of the area and neighborhood around the hotel.
Welcome to havana!
[7:30 pm - 9:30 pm] - La Guarida. Welcome dinner
This restaurant, originally a Paladar, has gone on to become one of the most popular high-end restaurants in Cuba. It has shown the way for upstarts in Havana on how to expand with great service and fine food. La Guarida grew in a decade from a family restaurants with four tables to a sought after dining establishments where you will rub elbows with movie stars, ambassadors, and even royalty when they are in town. Anyone who has been to La Guarida will find it difficult to disagree that Enrique and Odeisys have managed to create their own magical place. It has a cosy atmosphere with soft lights, fine table linen, German silver cutlery, candles, Cuban music and a growing collection of Havana’s finest artists. The effect is magnified by the entrance from a run-down Central Havana street. The building, originally known as La Mansión Camagüey, shows its former grandeur from the magnificent wooden entrance door through the marble staircase up the two flights of stairs to the restaurant itself. For visitors to Havana, La Guarida has become a must experience.
[2] Monday, 18 May 2015 - Havana City
[7:00 am - 8:30 am] - Breakfast at the hotel
[9:00 am - 5:00 pm] - Old Havana Four Plazas
Tour Old Havana on foot, walking between the four main plazas that comprise Cuba’s
first UNESCO World Heritage Site. Start at Plaza de Armas, the site of the oldest Spanish fortress in the Americas, the 1519 locale of the first mass in Cuba, and the massive Baroque seat of government, known as Palacio de los Capitanes Generales. Continue to Plaza de San Francisco de Assis and Plaza Vieja, where we will visit museums, conservation studios, and historic buildings and get a sense of the structure of the colonial city. Wind through historic streets spanning 5 centuries of historic architecture and end at Plaza de la Catedral and see the Baroque cathedral.
[10:00 am - 11:00 am] - Capitanes Generales Museum
Visit to the Museum of the City of Havana and its collections. Visit with conservation professionals who work in the nearby studios of the Historian of Havana’s offices.
[12:30 pm - 2:30 pm] - Paladar Los Mercaderes
In Old Havana "Los Mercaderes" paladar, combines the atmosphere of a typical colonial house (the tainted glasses, murals & frescoes, and original XIX century floors) with an excellent variety of plates coming from traditional to international with a special emphasis on fresh seafood. This restaurant is ranked as one of the six most important restaurants in Cuba by TripAdvisor.
Afternoon- Continue with a leisurely stroll of the four plazas and other interesting sites in Old Havana and a visit to the conservation departments of the Historian of Havana. There is so much historical detail on the streets and the buildings that comprise this UNESCO site for World Heritage that you can easily spend the whole afternoon exploring.
[7:30 pm - 9:30 pm] - Dinner at Kadir Lopez studio
Kadir Lopez, and his brother Kelvin Lopez are graduates of the Instituto Superior de Arte. Their expansive studio and exhibit spaces are located in A 1930’s Havana mansion that has been re-purposed by the artists for their home-workspace. Here the group will enjoy a great and delicious traditional Cuban home-made dinner cooked by the family of the artist.You will have a chance to talk with Kadir, Kelvin and other artists who will join us to discuss aspects of Cuban culture and how artists fare within the system.
[3] Tuesday, 19 May 2015 - Havana City
[7:00 am - 8:30 am] - Breakfast at the hotel
[9:00 am - 11:45 am] - Capitolio Central Park and Prado
Lying on the border of old Havana and Centro Havana municipality, this area is notable for containing numerous architecturally and historically significant buildings that exemplify mid-19th c. urban center. We will begin at the 1877 Central Park, then walk along the 1772 Prado Promenade, see the Moorish-style Inglaterra Hotel, oldest in the city, the 1929 Capitolio building, which is modeled on the US capitol, and the Bacardi building, the best example of tropical Art Deco.
12:30 -2:00 PM - Ajiaco Cafe
This Paladar serves meals that could easily make you think you are dining at one of the best restaurants in New York or LA. But as soon as you look up at the scenic tropical scene you will realize you are eating at one of Havana’s best new paladares.
[2:30 pm - 4:15 pm] - Ernest Hemingway's Finca La Vigia
Visit Ernest Hemingway's Finca La Vigia, located on a hilltop in the rural village of San
Francisco de Paula, just southeast of the City of Havana. The home has recently been the subject of a massive preservation effort by the National Trust for Historic Preservation as the author left it in 1961. At this farm you will be able to see his sport-fishing boat, the Pilar. This place houses the Hemingway Museum. The Finca Vigia estate and the fishing village of Cojimar are considered the most significant locales for those interested in Hemingway history.
5:30 PM - Drink at Florida Bar
We will continue on the Hemingway trail with drinks at his favorite bar Floridita where a life sized likeness of the author-in bronze- sits on his favorite stool and nurses the specialty of the house, The Cuban Daiquiri. This is where it was invented.
7:30 PM – Dinner on your own
Tonight dinner is in a paladar of your choice from a list of the hottest foodie scenes in the City. We will make the reservations. This is an opportunity to get away from the larger group and dine with a smaller group of friends. You will take a taxi to the restaurant. The group will have a chance to speak with the Chef and owner of the establishment to discuss food and new opportunities in the food industry in Cuba. The cost of this meal is not included in the trip price.
[4] Wed, 20 May 2015 - Havana City
[7:00 am - 8:30 am] - Breakfast at the hotel
[9:00 am - 12:00 pm] - Cementerio de Colon and environs
Visit Havana's Cementerio de Colon. Laid out between 1871 and 1886, the cemetery includes more than 500 mausoleums, chapels and family vaults, sculpted in bronze, granite, marble and limestone by leading Cuban and European artists. Learn about the relationship between this cemetery and the Catholic Church in Cuba.
[12:30 - 2:00 pm] - Vista al Mar Paladar
You will explore Cuba’s experiment with free enterprise and entrepreneurial pursuits by dining at one of Havana’s emerging Paladares. These home restaurants along with other types of small businesses were established to allow Cubans to create their own economic futures. You will talk with the waiters and meet the owner of your Paladar and discuss how free enterprise is fairing in Cuba. Vistamar Right on the ocean.
[2:00 – 3:30 pm] - En route to the Museum of Fine Arts, visit several iconic architectural sites in the city, including the Hotel Riviera, which is nearly an intact modernist kitsch palace designed by Miami based architect Igor Polevitzky for Meyer Lansky and the Lopez Serrano Building, a nearly intact Art Deco apartment building.
[3:30 PM – 5:00 pm] - Museo de Bellas Artes Cuban art collection/Bellas Artes Museum. Visit the Cuban collections in this striking modernist building which was completed in 1953 and exemplifies the combination of sculpture with architecture in Cuban mid-century modernism. The Palace of Fine Arts houses a collection of Cuban visual art that spans four centuries. Meet the conservators who work on the collection.
[7: 00 pm] Dinner at the Hotel at La Barraca restaurant, a delightful garden spot at the hotel. Cuba food. The cost of this meal is not covered in the trip price. (Not included)
[9:00 pm] Depart for Tropicana Night Club. The Tropicana was the most famous nightclub in the world from 1939 to 1959. Built in the gardens of an early 20th century residence, it contains one of Cuba’s most significant modern buildings, the Arcos de Cristal (1952), a thin-shell concrete structure. The club continues to operate and is the only one of Havana’s famed clubs to survive the revolution. Rosa Lowinger, your study leader, wrote the definitive work on this club: Tropicana Nights: The Life and Times of the Legendary Cuban Nightclub (Harcourt 2005), demonstrating how it was a microcosm for Cuba in the period of the revolution. Rosa will offer a rare behind-the -scenes architectural tour to our group.
Optional additional feature. You can stay for the legendary Tropicana show this evening on your own. The price of the show is not included in your trip price.
[5] Thursday, 21 May 2015 - Havana City
[7:00 am - 9:00 am] - Breakfast at the hotel
[9:30 am - 11:00 am] - Museo de Artes Decorativas/Decorative Arts Museum
Since 1964 this magnificent eclectic-style Havana mansion, once owned by María Luisa Gómez Mena, countess of Revilla Camargo has been home to a collection of over thirty thousand works of art, including Louis XV and XVI period furniture; 17th to 19th-century Chinese decorative arts, Chantilly, Meissen, Sevres, Limoge, Staffordshire, Wedgwood and Faenza porcelains, and numerous clocks, precious metals, paintings, and tapestries.
[11:00 am to Noon] – Vedado Walking tour .
Walk along the streets of the modern portion of Havana and see the development of the city in the 1940s-1950s. We will walk from the Decorative Arts Museum along 23rd street seeing the urban plazas of this portion of the city, the murals of the neighborhoods, including the monumental ceramic tile mural by artist Amelia Pelaez in the old Havana Hilton, the Copellia park, buildings by modernist Mario Romañach, two historic theaters, and the terrazzo artist installations along the walkway known as La Rampa that were built after the revolution. Along the way we will stop off at the offices of UNESCO in Cuba and meet with director Victor Marin, a preservation architect and former assistant director of the National Conservation
[12:00 pm - 2:00 pm] - Lunch at paladar Le Atalier. Calling Atelier contemporary is like calling Havana a little rundown: true, but enough of an understatement as to miss the point. The large main room is decorated with sparse modern lines, inside a typically idiosyncratic Vedado mansion. Two balconies have boundless cushions for the outdoor lounge. An antique hob outside, old sewing and adding machines inside make the place retro yet not old. The food changes every day, every week, hence the handwritten menus.
[2:00 pm - 3:00 pm] - Folklorico Nacional de Cuba private rehearsal
Go behind the scenes and witness this extraordinary ensemble of Afrocuban folkloric
music and dances.After 35 years and 93 international tours you can't find more authentic Afrocuban performance than this. Or Free time
[3:00 pm - 6:00 pm} – Stop at the Art Market and spend time on your own to follow up on previous visits, go back to an especially interesting place or simply reflect on all that you have learned about Havana,
[6:30 pm - 7:30 pm] - Classic cars
We will be picked up by a fleet of classic American cars and ride through Havana in style to dinner tonight.
[7:30 pm - 9:30 pm] - San Cristobal Paladar. Closing dinner.
Rated by The Guardian as the number one Paladar in Havana, This paladar, is in a space that is cluttered and eclectic on the bottom floor of an early 20th-century mansion. Piles of old books are stacked atop beautiful old furniture; black and white photos jostle for space with antique record covers and bullfighting posters, while a selection of clocks, religious artefacts and, even a full-size zebra pelt, add to the mix. The food is Cuban-Creole: malanga, yucca, cerdo asado (roast pork), lobster, fresh fish, shrimp and other traditional fare. This is not, however, the bland standard cuisine found in many state restaurants. The dessert menu is expansive: pudding San Cristóbal (eggs, fruit, milk and almonds) is excellent while the fruit tart and rice puddings are pretty passable, as well as the omnipresent flan. The wine list is broad enough and reasonably priced. We will have a chance to speak with the Chef and the owner of the establishment to discuss food and new opportunities in the food industry in Cuba.
After dinner continue the celebration with a visit to La Fabrica, an art space consisting of several art studios, performance spaces, and a rooftop bar/ cafe in a renovated factory. The contemporary musician X Alfonso set this space up as an alternative gallery/ artist's collective and many excellent shows are held there.(optional-on your own)
[6] Friday, 22 May 2015 - Havana City/Miami
[7:00 am - 9:00 am] - Breakfast at the hotel
[11:00 am - 11:30 am] - Transfer from a Havana hotel to the airport
[2:45 pm - 3:45 pm] - Depart Havana to Miami