Voyage of Discovery 8

"Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving."
Albert Einstein

Time for another wander around the old city in the morning before lunchtime departure.  It's an opportunity for me to go looking for a few pictures for myself, something beyond my tourist snaps, something that may have meaning for me in a few years time perhaps.

It's a matter of retracing some of yesterday's journey and hanging around to see what wants to be photographed.  I begin at the Russian Orthodox Church, South along Sao Pedro from the cruise terminal.  No idea why I found it so strange, given Cuba's connections with the USSR, but it seemed to stand out.  More so than the steam locomotives standing outside the station?  Shades of Casey Jones and the Cannonball Express about it.  By now the luminous vintage cars cruising the streets ceased to attract my attention, although I did wait for a pink one to pass in front of the Iglesia de San Francisco de Paula before getting my snaps.  There's a beautiful tile mural on the corner wall opposite, the whitewashed walls contrasting sharply with the crumbling shells of buildings behind.  I'm giving off a different vibe today, nobody approaches me or offers me tours of the city, even when I'm hanging around the station photographing the locos.  There are plenty of bici taxis around without passengers, but they leave me to get on with my snaps.  It's maybe a mile or so from the terminal so maybe they don't bother out here.  I cut through the back streets towards the Capitolio, which was the Capitol before the revolution, and is now home to the Cuban Academy of Sciences [and undergoing restoration].  There's a cluster of interesting buildings around the nearby park - the Gran Teatro and next door Hotel Inglaterra, the oldest in Havana.  This is a focal point for many visitors, testified by the transport options waiting around.  The ubiquitous bici-taxi, horse and carriage, vintage car, coco-taxi [yes, looks like a scooped out coconut], buses and a few clapped out Lada's.  Magic.