The Hotel Nacional de Cuba is an imposing building.  Built on a hill overlooking the sea in the Vedado area of Havana,   which is one of the commercial centers of Havana, the Hotel Nacional de Cuba at one point served as the hub of the city.The Vedado section of Havana itself has an interesting history.  Vedado translates as “preserve” - and indeed, this area was forbidden to build on for much of Havana’s history.  It was a wide open plain, from the heights of the fortress that marked the entrance of Havana Harbor, pirates and raiders could be seen approaching out of sea by looking out across this very plain.  The Hotel Nacional de Cuba is set on a hill overlooking the sea, the site of pirate landings and a battle with the British during the seven years war (the cannon still sit in the side of the hill).

The hotel is built like a large “H”, with the entrance and the main hall forming the center and the rooms forming each side.  A visitor pulls up in a circular driveway and enters at the very center of the building.  It is imposing to look at as you drive up the road towards it, one of the largest buildings and one of the fanciest with its eight floors and towers on each side.

The main lobby is like a scene out of a different era and a strange mixture of modern and Moorish architecture…modern in the 1950’s style.  The ceiling in the lobby is like that of an ancient church with large wooden beams marked with flowers and vines painted on their surface.  Arches run up and down each side, sculptures on either end of the hallway, and opposite the main entrance is another door that leads out to the garden area.

The lobby too has a history.  It is said that it was out this lobby, the United States mafia ran the country for the five years leading up the rise of Castro.  Out of defiance of them, it is said that Castro too ran the country out of the lobby of this same hotel.

They would not have been alone walking the modern…yet ancient looking…lobby.  The Hotel bills itself as the “place where actors and diplomats sleep.”  It is true; Winston Churchill, Frank Sinatra, Ava Gardner, Johnny Weissmuller, Buster Keaton, Errol Flynn, and Ernest Hemingway all walked these same hallways.  Ah yes, they also have something else in common…they all died a long, long time ago.

But don’t worry; you can probably sleep on the exact same mattresses that they too slept on.

The hotel says that it modernized in the 1950’s and 1990’s.  The furniture in the rooms was classic - all polished wood and chairs that were relatively small.  The mattresses too were classics, all appearing to be circa 1950’s as well, but don’t worry, the box spring was not…they were all removed at some point.

Our rooms were on the executive floor, floor number six.  There was a large gathering area where you could get breakfast in the mornings as you looked out over the deep blue Caribbean Sea.  In the evening, the room was filled with the rich smell of Cuban Cigars wafting through the air as people relaxed while watching the latest on CNN.

By far, the best part of the hotel is the garden area on the opposite side of the hotel from the main driveway.  The garden area, the other open half of the “H” is lined with arches on all three sides - all line with wicker tables and chairs.  At the very top center was a beautiful Spanish fountain accessible via the footstones that lead even farther, past the fountain to the overlook by the sea.  Between two ancient gun emplacements from the Seven Years War in 1862 sits a small cluster of tables with a perfect overlook of the sea and the Malecon, the main thouroughfare that runs along the sea.

Some of the very best mohitos that I consumed while in Cuba were mixed at one of the two bars, the first, tucked back in the corner of the “H” was open twenty-four hours.  The second was a satellite bar closer to the ocean.

The Hotel Nacional de Cuba was like the rest of the country, a dirty gem in a grimy box.  It was a contradiction, a beautiful old hotel that had style and opulence but where the details were not taken care of, where the edges were a little tattered and the carpets a little frayed.  Where it has the vestiges of greatness, but was somehow eschew.