Havana – Cuba. What is it that we pine for during moments of nostalgia? Is it something we long for in ourselves? In others? Is it a criticism of contemporary culture or modern policy? What does it mean when that past pre-dates us and our interaction with it is based more on imagination than memory?
I suspect that for many U.S. travelers, the intrigue surrounding Cuba’s capital is rooted in nostalgia. We do not often hear of US travelers hankering to visit the beaches of Varadero in nearby Matanzas, a favorite of today’s European travelers and one of the most popular resort areas in all of the Caribbean. Rather, I hear of a longing to see a city perceived to be stuck in the 1950s when Cuba was the playground of U.S. mobsters and movie stars. Havana’s pull is its classic cars — Chevrolets, Fords, and Ladas — the grand old buildings, proud in their peeling paint and crumbling facades, the glamour of the Tropicana Club, and sounds of 
the long-shuttered Buena Vista Social Club. The city’s appeal is also tied to the revolution that upended it all — to Che, the mid-century era of heroes and villains, and defiantly-cocked berets — and to the U.S. embargo — which Cubans refer to as the blockade. The nostalgia for Havana and all it symbolizes is complicated, and surely made stronger (and sweeter) by an inability to satisfy the urge.
The lure of nostalgia is hardly unique to Havana. It’s what makes “old towns” — those so-designated cities, towns, or districts from which larger metropolitan areas sprang — everywhere so appealing. It’s why city-dwellers fall over themselves to make homes in abandoned factories and why restaurateurs covet locations in historic districts. There’s character there, stories there. Our stories. History is made present in these places and we are able to connect with it, to 
find ourselves in it, and if we wish, to insert or separate ourselves. We, instinctively perhaps, are drawn to the past, especially a past that reflects back to us an image of ourselves that we recognize or approve. The present is in constant conversation with the past, and when we visit cities for nostalgia’s sake, we immerse ourselves in this dialogue and engage with our own self-image.