Philip Levine Cuba Discovery tour

Philip Levine Cuba Discovery tour map

• Arrive at Havana’s José Martí International airport (HAV).
• Enroute to your boutique accommodations savor the sights and sounds of one of the oldest and most stunning cities in the New World.
• At your lodging, enjoy a welcome cocktail, freshen up, and get comfortable.
• Group welcome dinner with your guide and tourmates at the private restaurant Esquina D'Fraile.
•  Evening entertainment options: Groove to live jazz, relax in a lounge, or revel in a dicey dance    show – all within walking distance of your lodging.

• Greet the day with tasty breakfast at your boutique accommodations.

• Fall in love with Old Havana. “In terms of beauty, only Venice and Paris surpassed Havana,” penned Ernest Hemingway. He was alluding to Havana’s incredible architecture, arts, and, of course, the joie de vivre of the city’s engaging people. Old Havana’s four ancient plazas are full of color and personality, with a mix of palatial buildings, monuments, museums, galleries, churches, lively entertainment, restaurants, and bars.

  Together, they contain the most extensive collection of Spanish colonial-era architecture in the western hemisphere. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, restoration and care of Old Havana’s wonders is assigned to the Office of the Historian of Havana – Cuba Explorer’s island sponsor. We’ll visit Cathedral Square, the Square of Arms, San Francisco Square, and Plaza Vieja.

• Now we explore Havana’s famed arts and crafts mall know as Centro Cultural Antiguos Almacenes de Depósito San José. This marvelous restoration of dilapidate dock warehouse has resulted in a gigantic market exhibiting the wares of hundreds of Cuban artists and craftspersons. An authentic Cuban shopping experience!
• Welcome lunch at the private restaurant Mojito-Mojito. Ideally situated in Plaza Vieja, its friendly staff, quaint atmosphere, and delicious food makes it rank high on TripAdvisor. The restaurant’s slogan, “A single mojito is not enough.” We agree.
• Get ready for an American vintage cars tour of Havana. You will tour of the most important sites of Modern Havana such as the Capitol building, the Grand Theatre, Central Park and Prado promenade. Also, you will discover the Revolution Square, Coppelia Ice Cream Park, Plaza José Martí (in front of US Embassy), Malecón seawall, Monument to the Battleship Maine, and Hotel Nacional. You will come to know University of Havana, Cementerio de Cristóbal Colón, and the Miramar, Central Havana and Vedado    neighborhoods.
• Return to your boutique accommodations to freshen up.
• Dinner not included – an occasion to sample Havana’s stellar private eateries and taste the diversity of the island’s distinctive cuisines.

• Greet the day with tasty breakfast at your boutique accommodations.
• We have a special lunch arranged for you at Ajiaco paladar. It’s TripAdvisor’s highest-rated restaurant for genuine Cuba food. Off the beaten path in the sleepy romantic coastal fishing village of Cojímar – the setting for Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea,” Ajiaco is noted for fantastic service, atmosphere, and scrumptilicious traditional Cuba cuisine. Local organic gardens supply all of Ajiaco's menu ingredients. The result is every dish exudes delightfully fresh aromatic flavors you’ll never forget.  Be ready for an amazing cooking classes. You will learn how to cook popular Cuban dishes.
• Now we’re off to visit Finca Vigía [Lookout Farm] where literary bard Ernest Hemingway spent twenty-one of his most productive years becoming a titan of English literature. Claimed by both the United States and Cuba as their native son, it was Hemingway himself who declared the island to be his true home. His house remains just as it was when lived in it. You’ll see his eclectic personal objects, thousands of books, manuscripts, and photographs, as well as some animal trophies, bagged on his frequent safaris.
• Return to your boutique accommodations to freshen up.
• Dinner not included – an occasion to sample Havana’s stellar private eateries and taste the diversity of the island’s distinctive cuisines.

• Greet the day with tasty breakfast at your boutique accommodations.
• Sea goddess. Visit the community of Regla across the bay from Havana. Once the site of a 16th-century Aboriginal settlement, today it’s a mixed-race village that honors Yemayá, the Black Virgin of the Yoruba religion and patron goddess of Havana Harbor. Regla’s rich Afrohispanic traditions are celebrated via music, songs, dances, ritual handicraft, and food. At the Regla Museum, you’ll see ancient objects of significance to the Santería religion. When visiting Regla’s church, you’ll see a shrine to the Black Virgin goddess of Regla (and the oceans), Yemayá, whose roots lie in ancient Egypt.
• Can’t miss visit to the recently renovated Capitolio de La Habana, home to Cuba’s National Assembly. The imposing monument is reminiscent of the US Capitol but taller and less austere; chocked full of grand statuary, breathtaking ornamental details, and jaw-dropping art. The building supports the sixth-largest dome in the world – clad in 24 karat gold plated panels. Inside you’ll see the bronze Statue of the Republic based on a young Cuban woman. It’s the third-largest indoor statue in the world. You will learn all about this magnificent structure from staff who work at the Capitolio.
• Visit Casa del África. This mansion originally served as a shop selling snuff. Today, as the House of Africa, it displays objects of different African cultures, especially ivory carvings, ritual and decorative masks, musical instruments, weapons, tools, and textiles and clothes, many of which are gifts received by Fidel Castro from African countries.
• Lunch at a private restaurant.
• Visit the Afrocuban influenced Callejón de Hamel, one of the shortest but most mesmerizing streets in Havana. See Afrocuban religion of Santería, a fusion of African belief systems (multiple saint worship) and Catholicism, portrayed in art, music, and dance. Vibrant murals adorn alley walls in tribute to the culture and religious beliefs of the neighborhood.
• Cuban dance lessons by performers. All great dance is globally inspired. Movements from other countries going back millenniums, refined and stylized, turned into something ethereal for our time. If any nation has contributed most to US dance, we think it is Cuba with its rich sensuous African, European, Asian and Indigenous mixes. Dance masters and choreographers of the funtastic Cuban floor shows will help you move with the grace of angels – very wild angels! You’ll learn all the best steps this afternoon from tutors who’ll turn you into a salsa, mambo, rumba, danzon, and cha cha chá whiz.
• Return to your boutique accommodations to freshen up.
•  Dinner at the private paladar La Moneda Cubana in Old Havana.

• Breakfast in hotel (included)
• Morning departure to Las Terrazas eco-community. About an hour west of Havana is the Sierra del Rosario Biosphere Reserve, declared a Reserve of the Biosphere by UNESCO in 1985. Centuries of timbering and subsequent harvesting for charcoal led to deforestation, erosion and infertility in the once lush Sierra del Rosario Mountains.
• We'll visit the rural village called Rancho Curujey and we will learn about this self-sustaining community's successes in reforestation, historical preservation, environmental balance, and a good life.
• Lunch at Casa del Campesino restaurant, (included)
• Visit the art studio of a local artist.
• Free time to swim at Rio San Juan
• Return to Havana
• Dinner not included

• Greet the day with tasty breakfast at your boutique accommodations.
• Visit San Alejandro school
• We'll feast on a delicious lunch hosted by José Fúster, one of Cuba's most important ceramists and painters. And we’ll tour his whimsical studio in Jaimanitas, just outside of Havana (included)
• Visit National Ballet school Fernando Alonso. Exchange with students and professors.
• Visit Abel Barroso studio (included)
• Return to your boutique accommodations to freshen up.
• Dinner not included – an occasion to sample Havana’s stellar private eateries and taste the diversity of the island’s distinctive cuisines.

• Greet the day with tasty breakfast at your boutique accommodations.
• Art attack. Examine Cuba’s greatest visual masterpieces spanning three centuries at Havana’s museum of modern art – Palacio de Bellas Artes. Sections are devoted to landscape, religious subjects, and narrative scenes of Cuban life over 300 years. Together the exhibits account for the richness of the island’s Spanish, French, Chinese, African and Aboriginal cultural roots. Notable works include those of René Portocarrero and Wilfredo Lam. You’ll meet and chat with museum staff and perhaps local artists.
• Time flies when you’re having rum! Cuba’s golden elixir spans nearly five hundred years of brewing. You’ll learn the fascinating history and art of distillation of the island’s (and Hemingway’s) most popular spirit. The Havana Club Museum of Rum opened in the year 2000 within a grand private palace. It houses incredible artifacts used in the rum-making process, as well as an expansive Rum inventory, and a chance to sample this liquid ambrosia.
• Lunch not included – an occasion to sample Havana’s stellar private eateries and taste the diversity of the island’s distinctive cuisines.
• Return to your boutique accommodations to freshen up.
• Dinner at a private restaurant (included)

• Greet the day with tasty breakfast at your boutique accommodations.
• Transfer to José Martí International airport (HAV) for flights home.
• We’ll miss you and hope you will return soon. In Cuba, we say, "A true friend remembers the song in your heart when you have forgotten the lyrics."