We had just left a baseball game near midnight in Havana when a thief made a grab for our bags... It was three days into our weeklong trip to Cuba, and my companion Irene and I had just $150 left between us.

We had just left a baseball game near midnight in Havana when a thief made a grab for our bags... It was three days into our weeklong trip to Cuba, and my companion Irene and I had just $150 left between us.

Credit and debit cards issued by US banks are useless here. Still, we found that Havana on the cheap can be surprisingly delightful. One of Havana's many English-speaking tour guides implored us to "look at Havana with our hearts," since our eyes alone would see much squalor, and she was right. Most of the buildings from eras past truly show their age, and the same is true for Havana's famous 1950s cars. Old Havana is another story. A massive restoration project has spruced up this historic area, bringing many of the city's classy, classic hotels back to their pre-revolutionary glory -- such as the Hotel del Tejadillo, built from three 18th- and 19th- century mansions, the art nouveau Hotel Raquel and the fin-de-siecle Hotel Plaza.

The occasional street robbery notwithstanding, this is a superb city for pedestrians. I hope the day will come when US citizens won't have to sneak in and out of Cuba through Cancun or through Nassau, as we did.

To read more about this story go to Bloomberg.com

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