cheryl
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Staff member
The origin of the first travel blog - BBC
Twenty-five years ago, an intrepid traveller circumnavigated the globe with a battery-powered laptop, and forever changed how the world travels.
Outside Havana’s Hotel Nacional, the city is jubilant: this Spanish-founded port is in the midst of celebrating its 500th anniversary. Vintage Bel-Airs and Buick convertibles ply the roads, painted in gumdrop colours. Fireworks and canon fire fill the midnight sky, and music pulses in the bars lining Obispo Street. Along Calle Galiano, bridged by nets of white and blue LEDs evoking stellar constellations, locals are dancing and drinking rum. On the border of Habana Vieja, Old Havana, the dome of the newly restored Capitol gleams like a polished helmet.
Seven flights below me, in the plaza visible from my window, a bandstand floats in an island of floodlights. By midnight 100,000 people will fill that square, dancing to a free quincentennial anniversary concert.
Five flights down, meanwhile, on the Nacional’s mezzanine, is the hotel’s business centre. Its frosted glass doors are stencilled with jazzy gold letters: INTERNET. And as its old desktop computers remind me, I’m here to celebrate an anniversary as well.
Twenty-five years ago, an intrepid traveller circumnavigated the globe with a battery-powered laptop, and forever changed how the world travels.
Outside Havana’s Hotel Nacional, the city is jubilant: this Spanish-founded port is in the midst of celebrating its 500th anniversary. Vintage Bel-Airs and Buick convertibles ply the roads, painted in gumdrop colours. Fireworks and canon fire fill the midnight sky, and music pulses in the bars lining Obispo Street. Along Calle Galiano, bridged by nets of white and blue LEDs evoking stellar constellations, locals are dancing and drinking rum. On the border of Habana Vieja, Old Havana, the dome of the newly restored Capitol gleams like a polished helmet.
Seven flights below me, in the plaza visible from my window, a bandstand floats in an island of floodlights. By midnight 100,000 people will fill that square, dancing to a free quincentennial anniversary concert.
Five flights down, meanwhile, on the Nacional’s mezzanine, is the hotel’s business centre. Its frosted glass doors are stencilled with jazzy gold letters: INTERNET. And as its old desktop computers remind me, I’m here to celebrate an anniversary as well.