Havana is a beautiful city, well worth seeing. It is however very easy to leave with a wrong impression about Havana, on one side you have Old Havana which is extremely well kept and touristy and beautiful but you also have the side of Havana that the locals live in which is much bigger and well worth seeing.

On our journey to Trinidad we found out that there is a China Town in Havana, so on our second day we set out to find it. This is definitely the most disappointing China Town I have ever been to, but at least it had an arch:

Some of the buildings had the original Chinese signs and design, but very few and we only found about 3 places that even do chinese food. Given all that we skipped getting chinese and headed off towards the Capitolio in search of beans and rice.

Capitolio is a must see, it is grand and this is where you can find all the old cars parked and ready to give you a ride or a tour of the city. If you don’t fancy that you can simply enjoy the view in the nearby park, by the Jose Marti Monument:

This is a nice place to relax in the evening before heading into Old Havana:

We spent a few evenings walking around Old Havana, it is full of beautiful old buildings but it is also full of tourists and people trying to sell you stuff.

Our daily walk back from all the sightseeing took us through the Malecon, this is a nice walk in the sunshine but beware of the waves soaking you on windy days. The view of the city is incredible and if you have time it stretches for hours and takes you through a couple of interesting monuments:

And some quirky newer buildings: