My girlfriend and I stayed at Hostal Valencia (HV)for a week at the start of September 2007. Luckily we arrived knowing that the staff were in the habit of pushing guests into the lesser hotel next door (Hostal El Comendador) so we objected when they tried this on us. I'm not sure the rooms are significantly worse than at HV, but it should not be asking too much to have a room in the hotel you booked. They didn't even tell us they were doing it, just quietly led us through a convenient passageway connecting the two hotels and hoped we wouldn't notice. Our objection was met by the man at the desk with the claim that there were no rooms available in HV. After some wrangling we were then shown a room in HV with no window. Presumably this was meant to make us glad to have been offered the room in the hotel next door. We then made it clear that we weren't happy and spent 20 minutes in the (very pretty) lobby consulting our Lonely Planet. Eventually we resolved to take the room in El Comendador and look for a new hotel the next day. We told the man this and he gave us the room key. Lo and behold we were then led to a third room, a perfectly acceptable room in HV. So in fact there had been at least two rooms in HV available all the time.

The room was clean, it had a window, and it was large. It was also attractively decorated with ceramic vases and well air-conditioned. I suspect it represented an upgrade for us (from an ordinary double to what they referred to as a 'suite'), but I would probably have been disappointed with it if I had specifically booked a suite - it was one (large) room plus bathroom but no more. The only real complaint about the room was that the shower tended to feel like quite brutal acupuncture given how hard and focused the jets of water were. I think the room name was Suega, if you particularly like to enjoy your showers and want to avoid it. The rooms on the top floor looked like they had balconies and even bigger windows. We were too exhausted to find out.

Apart from the man at reception, the rest of the staff were very nice, particularly the maid who cleaned the room and the bell hops. You should be aware that payment of the balance of the room price is payable in cash to a guy who sits at a desk in the lobby from time to time. In case you are suspicious of handing over a large amount of cash to someone in casual clothes, he looks a bit like Hank Azaria and seems like a nice and helpful guy.

I'm not sure that I would stay in Habana Vieja again. It is very touristy and full of mostly very uninspiring shops. Still, it is quite busy and central and for the first time visitor probably best unless you are prepared to shell out for the Hotel Nacional in Vedado and the necessary taxis to and fro (the posh hotels in Park Central which we did actually look at one day to get an idea mostly looked overpriced - the sort of luxury they would have had to provide to justify their prices just doesn't really exist in Cuba on any kind of general basis).

For that reason, despite the above, I would probably still recommend HV to first time visitors on a budget. But be prepared.

Nearby, the best places to eat were La Dominica, an Italian restaurant which did good pizza and La Lluvia which also did some reasonable pizza and good live music. By and large we found the state-controlled restaurants (especially El Patio in Plaza Catedral – have a drink in the evening for the ambience of the plaza, but I certainly wouldn’t recommend eating when La Dominica is around the corner) hugely disappointing. The only way to go in Cuba is paladars - the privately-run restaurants. The difference between them and the state restaurants is like night and day and I would hardly eat anywhere else if I went back. La Guardia in centro is unmissable - the seafood paella was particularly memorable. La Cocina de Lilliam in Miramar was also excellent. Its best to make reservations, but its not always essential. Taking a taxi to a decent paladar, wherever it may be, is the only way to eat well in Havana.

Given our experience with the private restaurants, I would abandon state-controlled hotels entirely next time and book a room in a private residence. If the difference is as great as with restaurants, it would be better than Hostal Valencia. Plus it would probably provide breakfast, which we found very difficult to come by. We were always too late for the HV breakfast (ends at 10 ish), so can’t really comment on it – we saw the tail end on one day and it looked a bit fly-infested, but I can’t say what it would have been like at the beginning. The best breakfast we found consisted of pastries from Francesca’s near Hotel Telegrafo in centro. It’s mediocre at best, but that was a good result in the circumstances.

We also went to the beach at Santa Maria del Mar - its a bit touristy but we found it easy enough to escape the crowd and find beautiful empty stretches of beach. Swimming in the warm blue sea was great and if I stayed in Havana again I would make a short beach trip part of most days. Particularly during daylight, Havana does not have so much to do/see that this would be over-indulgent. A taxi to Santa Maria costs max CUC15 each way.

One thing that’s worth knowing is that there is a small supermarket in a block on the south-east corner of the junction of Neptuno and Agramonte (to the north east of park central) which sells genuine Coke, Sprite, Fanta and Nestle chocolate biscuits as well as bottled water. We stocked up well a few times – we found that comfort foods and drinks were quite important in Cuba, particularly when breakfast was hard to find. Best to bring a plastic bag because they sometimes run out and the walk from there to HV with a heavy cardboard box in midday heat is not pleasant.