Product Description

The Rough Guide to Cuba is the ultimate guide to the home of sun, salsa and rum From down town Trinidad to small-town street parties, the full- colour section introduces the best Cuba has to offer. This revised 6th edition contains … The guide is full of informed descriptions and accurate listings of the best bars, restaurants and music venues to be seen at, from the lively city of Havana to the seaside resorts of Cayo Coco and Guardalavaca. This guide also takes a detailed look at the country’s turbulent history,sport, music and wildlife, and comes complete with new maps and plans for every area. The Rough Guide to Cuba’s is like having a local friend plan your trip!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10055 in Books
• Published on: 2007-08-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 656 pages

Amazon.co.uk
The popular image of Cuba as a tourist destination has fluctuated wildly over the years, and there is no question that this fascinating corner of the globe has enjoyed visitors of wildly disparate expectations -- from the hedonistic revellers of pre-Revolutionary Cuba (when it was essentially America's playground) to the many travellers who have visited for ideological reasons, seeing Fidel Castro (however controversial a figure) as a symbol of opposition to American global hegemony. As this guide demonstrates, a more balanced view of this remarkable country may be achieved. And of the many tourist guides to Cuba over the years, travellers who know their stuff will realise that the Rough Guide to Cuba is most likely to give a clear, authoritative and enthusiastic vision, recording all of Cuba's glories without drawing a veil over its less savoury aspects. Despite the country’s isolation from the West in general and its hostile relation to the US, Cuba has undoubtedly emerged (in the last 50 years or so) as one of the principal tourist destinations in the Caribbean. And Cuba has never lost its image as the home of sun, salsa and rum, along with an engagingly laid-back attitude that quickly communicates itself to visitors.

This is one of the more ambitious guides (as befits the subject), coming in at over 600 pages, and the range of information here is truly impressive. And what a range of fascinating destinations Cuba offers, from its sultry beaches to its lively, noisy entertainment venues. If you’ve long nourished a taste for all things Latin, it's probably time to pick up this guide and head for Cuba. And whatever your attitude to Fidel Castro -- pro or con -- it hardly matters; you're hardly likely to run into him on the sun-baked streets. --Barry Forshaw

About the Author
Fiona McAuslan writes on travel and lifestyle for the Daily and Sunday Telegraph, The Independent, Bluepint and Time Out London. Matt Norman spent a year living with a Cuban family in Centro Habana and attended courses at the University of Havana.

Customer Reviews

Not perfect - but as good as you're likely to get
I've just used this book to help me in my travels round Cuba and while it's not perfect, it was invaluable. The potted histories and local insights are all as well written as you would expect from the Rough Guides.

The book's usefulness is, admittedly, limited by the rapidly changing nature of much of Cuba. Paladars (the privately run restaurants) open and close all the time, musicians spring up here and there and then vanish again apparently without warning. And such seems to be the way of things in Cuba at the moment - all part of the charm. You just have to go with the flow and sometimes you strike gold, other times you find that the gold has moved on.

This guide contains accurate maps (better than many tourist maps available in Cuba - one good reason to buy it) and fair assessments of the more stable attractions such as museums, hotels etc, and that's about as good as you can hope for in a rapidly changing country.

To my knowledge the Rough Guide is currently a more recent edition than offered by its main competitors which in my opinion is a big selling point, given the changing nature of Cuba. If you're going, I recommend it. Don't rely solely on local maps and guidebooks which aren't plentiful and also tend to be slanted to emphasise what the Cubans think we tourists want to see and what they want to show off.

A Rough Guide not quite up to usual standard
This guide book is not as reliable as others in this normally excellent series. It tends to over-rate some of the sights - such as the comically old-fashioned Camilo-Che room in the Museum of the Revolution, and the restaurant recommendations are often wayward. The text often contradicts itself, and among the unmissable recommendations at the beginning of the book there are sights which are hardly remarkable.
This being said it is the most thorough guide book for Cuba, and is awash with listings.

Not as good as other Rough Guides
We used this guide to travel around Cuba independently for two weeks. It's not as good as other Rough Guides we've used in the past (Kenya, Egypt).

While it isn't particularly bad, there are a few issues:

The maps of Havana are worse and smaller than in the previous (2005) edition of the guide, and there's no map of the area between Centro Habana and Vedado - you have to flick between two maps and there are no street names on the overlapping area. We ended up carrying the DK Eyewitness travel guide for Cuba just to have a half-decent map.

The writer(s) seemed to get bored of Cuba and there's a thread of cynicism and sarcasm that, while generating a smile at first, does become very tedious as it threads throughout the whole book.

Also, there are no bus timetables included.