Cuba: Tourism in Hundred-Year-Old Hotels
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- Travel and Tourism
- Arts and Culture
- Caribbean
- culture an traditions
- Destinations
- history
- national
- Business and Economy
- 12 / 24 / 2008
Modern hotels are available for tourists, as well as hundred-year-old establishments that provide excellent services to their guests.
One of those establishments is the Plaza Hotel, which will turn 100 years soon.
Inaugurated in 1909 in the former mansion of the Counts of Casa Pedroso, the Plaza Hotel is in Havana's historic heart, across from Central Park and near the Grand Theater of Havana, a major cultural site for ballet and opera performances.
It is also close to the Capitol, which houses the Academy of Sciences of Cuba, the former Presidential Palace, the Museum of Fine Arts and the Church of Angel, which has a very attractive architectural style.
A stronghold of Cuba's hotel business for many years, the Plaza Hotel underwent major restoration works in 1985 to add the amenities that it offers its guests today in its 188 rooms, where modern furniture is combined with antique ornaments and artworks by Cuban painters.
An interior patio surrounded by stained-glass windows is an attraction that you cannot miss, especially its beautiful fountain, in which a sculpture of a woman – made of Carrara marble – silently watches the visitors who trespass the threshold of the Plaza Hotel.
However, the Plaza's fame comes from the guests who have stayed there. The list of illustrious guests also includes the Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova, who stayed at the Plaza Hotel on two occasions – 1915 and 1917. José Raúl Capablanca, a world chess champion and a glory of Cuba's sports, played his first tournament in the hotel's halls.
Another major hotel is the seven-decade-old Hotel Nacional de Cuba, which ranks among the top 10 Palace Hotels in the world and was the only five-star establishment in the Caribbean region from the 1930s to the 1950s.
The oldest Havana hotel is the Inglaterra, which was inaugurated on December 23, 1875, and was named after the major world power at the time, England.
(DTCuba)
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