Wanderings onward: Cuba - still more Havana

One day I cycled to the Plaza de la Revolución, one of the largest plazas in the world at 72,000 sq meters. It was started before the revolution by Fulgencia Batista, the US supported dictator of the day and completed in 1959, the year Fidel came to power. It is surrounded by what I think is called brutalist architecture, imposing, grey buildings, the seat of the communist party government buildings.

Opposite the memorial are the offices of the Ministries of the Interior and Communications, whose facades feature matching steel memorials of the two most important deceased heroes of the Cuban Revolution: Che Guevera, with the quotation "Hasta la Victoria Siempre" (Until the Everlasting Victory, Always) and Camilo Cienfuegos (sometimes mistaken for Fidel Castro, with the quotation "Vas bien, Fidel" (You're doing fine, Fidel).

The plaza is dominated by the José Martí memorial. José Martí was a poet, journalist and father of the Cuban independence movement and one of the most iconic personalities of modern Cuban history.

From the Plaza I rode in a big loop following the bus line. As I rode toward home along the Malecon, I noticed a big fancy building up above and went to investigate. It turned out to be the Hotel Nacional, a big hotel built in the 1930s where notable movie actors and dignitaries stayed during the heyday of the US supported dictators, people like Hemingway, Errol Flynn, Winston Churchill, Tyrone Power, etc. Now a UNESCO site, it's a state hotel with allegedly crappy rooms, underpaid staff and 1% guests from near and afar swilling rum, puffing Cuban cigars and living large.