Change is coming to Cuba - and it's about time. After decades of proud isolation, this Caribbean island nation, seemingly frozen in time since 1959 and defined for so long by a heavily-bearded, cigar-smoking revolutionary in olive fatigues, is having its day in the sun.

The death of Fidel Castro last month marked the end of a major chapter in the country's history, but Cuba had been the focus of international attention before that. In the space of a few months from September 2015, Pope Francis and President Obama made high-profile visits, The Rolling Stones played a free concert in Havana, Chanel staged a fashion show on Paseo del Prado and perhaps most improbably, Hollywood came to town. Action scenes for Fast 8 - the next instalment of the Fast & Furious film franchise - were shot along The Malecon, an eight-km-long boulevard that runs along the Havana waterfront. Closer to home, a Cuban embassy opened in Singapore.

More than three million people visited Cuba (population: 11.2 million) in 2015 but numbers are expected to surge as visitors (an estimated 3.7 million this year) descend on the Cuban archipelago (comprising some 4,159 islands), drawn by an exhilarating blend of natural beauty, Latin-infused culture and a giddy sense of travelling back in time.