Staying at Casa Antigua gives you first-hand experience of how the Cubans live. Horatio and Marta run their “casa particular” (the Cuban version of a B&B) with a great deal of pride. They have managed to restore their 1940s villa, replacing once-lost original features, and have rescued their family's antique furniture to create a fascinating environment for their guests. With limited resources, they offer a warm welcome, good breakfast and tips and ideas for how to make the most of your stay in Cuba. Speaking excellent English, they are happy to talk about the history and politics of Cuba as well as recommending the best bars, restaurants and things to do in and around Havana. To get the best out of Cuba, stay with a family - it's an experience you'll never forget and much cheaper than staying in impersonal hotels.

The casa is in the district of Vedado, Havana;
www.casantigua.justincuba.com/casaen/

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Because of the dual currency system in operation in Cuba, going out to the usual tourist haunts in La Habana Vieja can get really repetitive and they aren't the place to meet locals, simply because they don't earn pesos convertibles and therefore can't generally socialise in these places. Instead I'd recommend the malecon (the seafront promenade in La Habana) to anybody looking for an authentically Cuban experience. Get down there before sunset (which is spectacular in itself) with a bottle of rum and some friends, and watch the place take off on a Saturday night. The atmosphere is electric, there's music everywhere and you're guaranteed to meet some characters!! Not only is it a cheap way to socialise, but you won't be surrounded by tourists.

Along the seafront, La Habana.

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Watching sport abroad is fun. You get to see people at rest, and having a good time. And Cuba are the world's best at baseball.

When we were in Havana in December we went to see one of the early games of the National League. Industriales is Havana's big and very popular team. Their match schedule was available online and also in the daily paper. We asked our concierge how easy it was to get tickets, and he reckoned that it was only really a problem towards the end of the season.

All Cubans can get in for free, but we had to go to the foreigners' door and pay 3CUC each. This gave us seats in an enclosure guarded by a stern looking lady. The stadium is huge, and has the usual vendors climbing around offering food and drink.

One word of warning. There were NO taxis anywhere. We had to wait 30 minutes in a fairly deserted area of town. I got, probably needlessly, quite scared. I wished we'd asked our cab driver to pick us up.

We caught a taxi there, which cost about 10cuc from the centre;
www.beisbolcubano.cu/home/default.asp;
baseballguru.com/bbcuba1.html

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This is a cheap pizza place (less than 1 CUC for two pizzas) but the experience is even better than the price. You have to pluck up the courage to stand in the middle of the road and shout up your order (in Spanish) to a face hanging out over a balcony on the roof, three stories up.

You then wait with all the locals until your pizza is lowered down to you in a basket attached to a Heath Robinson style pulley system. You then swap pizza for money and the basket goes back up. If you need change then the basket is lowered back down and money is distributed fairly under the command of the man on the roof pointing at you and shouting “Seven pesos!' The pizza is good too, if a little oily.

In the Vedado area. On San Rafael, near the junction with Infanta - look for the crowd of people standing in the middle of the road then look up

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