"The island nation of Cuba" Cuba by gwened

It all started when on Christopher Colombus diary they read that upon entering this island on October 27 ,1492 he proclamed,"The most beautiful land human have yet seen"

It goes on that in 1588 king Felipe II of Spain gave it a royal decree naming it " The key to the gulf (of Mexico) and the bulkwards of the West Indies"

It goes further to say that when Spain lost Cuba in 1898 the regent Maria Cristina (Alfonso XIII was minor) told her prime minister Juan Manuel Sanchez the same famous words the mother of the caliph of Granada told her son 1492, "cry my son like a woman what you did not know how to defend like a man"

It goes further to be told that it has been considered the "Most precious jewel of the Spanish crown" for many years. When Ernest Hemingway came to live in near Havana and purchase the farm La Vigia near Cojimar where he went fishing and wrote many novels including the "Old man and the sea" for which he won a Pulitzer price; Mr Hemingway called Cuba " The Paris of the Americas"
and it continues until the revolution in 1959.

Thereafter it has many other names, but the dictatorship does not let it be what it was and could be again, the most beautiful island in the world. Even with the hardships ,it is still one of the top tourist visited places in the Americas.

church of Arroyo Arenas

lesser known on the old central highway leaving Havana for the cigar country of Pinar del Rio on the Carretera Central passing the town of Arroyo Arenas. A landmark church for many who remain Catholic in hardship days.

Presidential palace today revolution museum

This is the democratic Presidential palace, even in hard times, the elections came back, now it is the revolution museum, and the elections are for the same person.

• Pros:The seas, beaches, history at its best in the Americas
• Cons:hardship by the locals under a dictatorship
• In a nutshell:The most beautiful land human eyes have ever seen