Grand Hotel Manzana Kempinski, Havana, Cuba

Originally built between 1894 and 1917 as the first European-style shopping arcade in Cuba, Gran Hotel Manzana Kempinski is situated in the heart of Old Havana with a direct view of the Capitol and the Great Theatre of Havana, amidst other UNESCO World Heritage sites. The iconic ‘Manzana’  building (literally translating as ‘apple’ but also a colloquial term for ‘block’), with its colourful past as a popular hub for fashionable locals and tourists, was the perfect stage for Kempinski’s first hotel in Cuba. The result is nothing short of an iconic, architectural rebirth in a city famously frozen in time.