The hook
The oldest continuously-inhabited European city in the Americas, where Spanish colonisation of the New World began, its Zona Colonial holding the first cathedral, the first paved street, and the first university built in the hemisphere.
01Why it's worth it
Most visitors to the Dominican Republic head straight for the beach resorts, but the capital, Santo Domingo, holds something they miss: the birthplace of European settlement in the Americas. Founded in 1498, its Colonial Zone (Zona Colonial), a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is a compact grid of cobbled and paved streets and honey-coloured stone buildings that includes an extraordinary set of "firsts" in the New World: the first cathedral, the first fortress, the first monastery and hospital, the first university, and the oldest surviving European street, along with the palace of Christopher Columbus's son and the ruins that recall the Spanish conquest launched from here (a history that, for the indigenous Taíno and later enslaved Africans, was catastrophic, a context worth holding). Today the Zona Colonial is not a museum but a living neighbourhood: its plazas and old mansions house lively cafés, bars, art galleries, and restaurants, and in the evenings it fills with music, merengue and bachata, the country's own rhythms, and Dominican street life. Beyond the old town, the city is a large, buzzing Caribbean metropolis. For history and culture beyond the beach, Santo Domingo's colonial core is the Dominican Republic's most rewarding urban experience.
02How to experience it
Wander the Zona Colonial's cobbled streets and its "firsts", the cathedral, the Alcázar de Colón, the fortress, ideally with a guide for the layered (and difficult) history, and stay for the evening café, music, and street-life scene. It is an easy day or two, a cultural counterpoint to the country's famous beaches.