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Ernest Hemingway Tour

Ernest Hemingway and Cuba

In 1934, Hemingway purchased a boat which he named Pilar and began sailing it through the waters of the Caribbean Sea. After a brief stay in Key West and his involvement as a journalist, scriptwriter, and contributor in two of the most significant political and social events of his time—the Spanish Civil War and World War II.

The American writer sailed to Cuban waters and found his greatest comfort in Havana at the Hotel Ambos Mundos, located in the historic district of the city (he was not familiar with vacation rentals in Cuba).

At that time (1939), he was going through a separation from Pauline Pfeiffer, after having met journalist and writer Martha Gellhorn in 1936. Choose one of our rental properties in Cuba and visit the most representative places on the island. Stay in one of our vacation rental homes in Cuba and enjoy a dream vacation.

hemingway y fidel castro cuba

Shortly after his arrival in the Lesser Antilles, he began to reside with Gellhorn in one of the most beautiful rental properties in Cuba: Finca Vigía, a rural house with 61,000 square meters located on the outskirts of the Cuban capital.

The couple established their winter residence there, and the renowned writer filled it with cats. There were dozens of them on his property, and he greatly enjoyed their company.

At Finca Vigía, Hemingway wrote part of his first famous novel, “For Whom the Bell Tolls” (1940). The book sold half a million copies in a few months and marked a definitive step in establishing his reputation as a writer, earning him a Pulitzer Prize nomination.

After a short stay in China, he returned to Cuba accompanied by Martha, who had been sent there on a journalistic mission.

The island was on the brink of war with the United States, and the writer convinced the Cuban government to use his boat, Pilar, to ambush the German submarines that remained off the country’s coasts.

floridita cuba

Afterwards, he remained in Europe for some years, and upon his return to Cuba, he wrote “Across the River and Into the Trees” and his masterpiece, “The Old Man and the Sea.” The latter only took him eight weeks to write and became the defining work of his life. The writer himself claimed it was the best he could offer, and he was not mistaken.

“The Old Man and the Sea” turned him into an international celebrity, and this time he received the Pulitzer Prize in May 1952. Two years later, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

He returned to Cuba in 1957 and began working simultaneously on “A Moveable Feast,” “Islands in the Stream,” “The Garden of Eden,” and “The Breaking Dawn.” The latter three remained unpublished and stored in Havana.

His home, Finca Vigía, started to be filled with tourists and guests, and gradually the writer began to feel unhappy. In 1960, he definitively left the island, although he maintained his relations with Fidel Castro, and his sympathy for the Cuban people remained. Discover Hemingway’s story set in a colonial house in 1940s Havana.

The house of Hemingway in Cuba today

Finca Vigía remains intact as one of the most beautiful museums in the Cuban capital. The team responsible for the preservation of the place decided to keep the estate as Hemingway left it, without altering the order of his personal belongings too much.

The Hotel Ambos Mundos continues to offer its services and preserves the room of the American Nobel Prize winner as one of its main tourist attractions and of historical interest.

On the other hand, places like El Floridita and La Bodeguita del Medio, where the writer loved to enjoy his favorite cocktails in the company of Cubans, have made Calle Obispo one of the best places to visit, with several rental properties in Cuba available over the years.

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