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What’s included?
- Santo Domingo city tour
- Hotel pickup and drop-off
- Admission to landmarks visited
- Gift shopping stop
- Professional guides
- Lunch
What to bring
- Comfortable Clothing
- Sneakers
- Camera
- Sunscreen
- Hat
- Cash
Excursion Details
During the Santo Domingo tour you will experience more than 500 years of history and culture in the New World’s oldest city. The tour exposes visitors to landmarks of the city’s pre-Columbian history, rich colonial era, and modern life, making it clear why Santo Domingo was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1992. We start by exploring the lagoons and underground caves protected within the Three Eyes National Park. The Taino Indians inhabited this area before Christopher Columbus first landed in Santo Domingo in 1492.
The Colonial Zone
The tour then moves into the era of Columbus. After a quick stop at the Columbus lighthouse, built in 1992 to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Columbus’s historic landing, you will enter Santo Domingo’s Colonial Zone. These 16 square blocks embody the culture of Santo Domingo during its long history as a Spanish colony. The first stop is the Columbus Palace, where Christopher Columbus’s son Diego lived during his tenure as Viceroy of the Indies. The tour then allows visitors to explore the Plaza de España and stroll through the oldest streets in the Americas, including the first paved street, the Calle Las Damas.
Finally, you will experience one of the most important historic and cultural sites in the western hemisphere, the first Cathedral built in the New World.
Modern Santo Domingo
A delicious lunch at one of the top Dominican restaurants in the city brings the tour into the present day. You will visit the modern section of the Dominican Republic’s capital city, which is home to 3 million people. The tour visits the National Palace, where the president and government operate today. And the last stop is a visit to a spacious gift shop where you can take home the perfect memento of this unique and important city.
May this tour remind you of Santo Domingo’s rich cultural history, which spans over 500 years and remains strong.
Sneak Peek
