Cuba before and after the 1959 Revolution

Off to the "New World" we go!

As promised earlier this week, we shall now criss-cross the Americas over the next few days, and we’ll start with the Caribbean island of Cuba.

I will not go into the details of the 1959 Revolution, the immediately preceding dictatorship (for which you may watch old Mafia movies), or whatever happened after Fidel Castro took power in Cuba.

Instead, as always, I shall post a few postcards of Cuba in the 1950s and 1960s.

Cuba Il/libre

Our journey begins in 1951 in La Habana, specifically, the Plaza de Armas:

If you had enough money—specifically US$—the nicest place to stay was, apparently, the Hotel Royal Palm, as shown on this picture postcard mailed in 1957:

For good measure, I’m including the reverse (some of you might like to practice reading German); the Hotel seems to no longer exist, as this website indicates (but click on it for additional pictures).

Finally for this posting, a view of Parque Central, or Central Park, one of Havanna’s main spots; the below picture postcard is from the series “Colleccion Cine Foto 62”, as indicated on its reverse (which I’m not reproducing because the tarjeta was never mailed). Do check out the Wikipedia entry of Parque Central for additional pictures.

In part two of this series, I’ll share a few more picture postcards. Stay tuned.