80 years on, Cuba's Hotel Nacional still shines

[Judi Lynn]

80 years on, Cuba's Hotel Nacional still shines
By JENNY BARCHFIELD
The Associated Press
Thursday, December 30, 2010; 1:32 PM

HAVANA -- The carpets are worn and the rooms have a musty feel. Yet Havana's iconic Hotel Nacional, which marked its 80th birthday Thursday, wears its slightly shabby elegance with pride, an aging beauty a bit past its prime.

The hotel has welcomed movie stars and mobsters, but today's visitors are mostly flip-flop-wearing tourists from Britain and Spain hoping to get a taste of the past at the apricot-colored monolith on Havana's seaside Malecon boulevard.

The hotel's story reads like a parable of recent Cuban history, chronicling the island's evolution from naughty tropical playground to communism's Caribbean enclave.

"The strength of the hotel lies in its history, in everything it's lived through and remained standing," said general manager Antonio Martinez Rodriguez. "Its fissures are like wrinkles on the face of an old and wise person who's seen it all."

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/30/AR2010123002541.html