Travel news

More good news from Havana.

The best known hotel on the island, the Hotel Nacional, has just been given a big tick from the international agency that rates hotel standards, according to this report by Prensa Latina.

The grand old hotel, which opened in 1930, has hosted such luminaries as Sir Winston Churchill, Maria Felix, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra and even Toshiro Mifune.

Now, it is home to hundreds of rich European tourists, US business types calling for the lifting of the American "blockade", and the occasional homesick socialist.

They will all be happy to hear that the Nacional meets the strictest of international standards when it comes to service and facilities.

Pity ordinary Cubans are barred from staying in the hotel, regardless of whether they can afford the US$1,000 a night for the presidential suite.

In egalitarian communist Cuba, the hotel is reserved for lucky foreigners.