The Hotel Tropical Island is close to Las Americas Airport, Three Eye Caves and the Colonial City, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
Beautifully renovated boutique hotel suite located 15min drive from Las Americas Airport.
Hotel Tropical Island is centrally located, next to the famous España Avenue and close to Santo Domingo’s main tourist attractions including Colonial Zone. The hotel offers air-conditioned rooms with free fast Wi-Fi, Smart TV and private bathrooms with hot water. The hotel also features a 24-hour front desk and 2 gated parking lot. Numerous bars, cinemas and music halls can be found in the surrounding area. It is also situated 6 minutes’ drive from Sirena shopping mall. The wonderful location of the Hotel Tropical Island, in the heart of Santo Domingo Este, offers everything you expect to enjoy in this great city: culture, fun and entertainment.
Discovering Santo Domingo means enjoying its lively night-life, its colonial treasures, its varied and mouth-watering cuisine, its beautiful natural landscapes, its great range of leisure and shopping possibilities, its modern hotels. But there’s something else that you really shouldn’t miss on any trip to the Dominican capital city — its museums.
The variety and quality of the museums and art galleries to be found in Santo Domingo make the city one of the Caribbean’s most appealing cultural destinations. Art, history, science, culture… all kinds of attractions, for children and adults alike — showing you the endless treasures of the Dominican Republic. And while you may well find some amazing museums in different areas of Santo Domingo, a good proportion of them are concentrated within the Ciudad Colonial area. Here is a good sample of the ones you really won’t want to miss.
Alcázar de Colón [i.e. Columbus], America’s first palace
This wonderful Gothic and Renaissance palace is one of the jewels in Santo Domingo’s crown, and the first European noble residence in America. The Alcázar [fortified palace] was built between 1511 and 1514, the home of Diego Colón, son of the Discoverer and governor of the island of La Española [Hispnaiola]. Nowadays, the former palace, designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, displays a fascinating collection of furniture, art works, musical instruments and old weapons that give an impression of the atmosphere that pervaded this luxurious viceroy’s mansion. As you explore its rooms, you’ll be transported straight back to the time of the Conquistadors.
The Alcázar de Colón is the most important historic building in the Plaza de España, the vast esplanade located at the eastern end of the Ciudad Colonial, right on the bank of the River Ozama. Like most of the city’s museums, the Alcázar is open to the public Tuesday – Saturday from 9.00 am until 5.00 pm, and on Sundays from 9.00 am until 4.00 pm. It is closed on Mondays.
Museo de las Casas Reales, a glimpse of Dominican history
Also located in Plaza de España, this old colonial complex comprises two connected edifices that served as a the residence of the Spanish governors and Capitanes Generales in the sixteenth century, and as the headquarters of the main administrative bodies of the time, such as the Real Audiencia — the New World’s first court of justice — and the Treasury Office. Its twenty or more rooms are now home to an interesting exhibition on Dominican colonial history, including tapestries, weapons, coins, decorative items, replicas and other treasures, dating from the arrival of Columbus in 1492 until 1821 when the country first gained independence.
Together with the Alcázar de Colón, the Museo de las Casas Reales ranks as one of Santo Domingo’s most significant historical buildings, and is one of the city’s most popular cultural attractions. Like its neighbor, this museum is open Tuesday – Saturday from 9.00 am until 5.00 pm, and on Sundays from 9.00 am until 4.00 pm.
Museo de las Atarazanas Reales [Royal Shipyards], undersea treasures
Cannons, coins, gold ornaments, pottery, precious stones… Discover the wealth of fascinating treasures recovered from various shipwrecks that occurred around the Dominican coastline between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries, in one of Ciudad Colonial’s newest museums. Since 2019, the Museo de las Atarazanas Reales has been displaying the Dominican Republic’s rich underwater archaeological heritage. Apart from a host of items recovered from the sea bed, the museum has replicas of old vessels and various interactive and audiovisual resources that tell of the exciting and arduous lives of the Caribbean’s sailors of old. Don’t miss the full-scale replica of the Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe galleon!
The museum is housed in the former Atarazanas Reales edifice, a sixteenth-century architectural jewel which has been carefully restored, and is located very close to the Alcázar de Colón. Open Tuesday – Friday, 9.00 am – 5.00 pm and Saturday, 10.00 am – 4.00 pm.
Centro Cultural de las Telecomunicaciones: from radio to the internet.
Another of the city’s newest museums, the Centro Cultural de las Telecomunicaciones [Telecommunications Cultural Center] offers a fascinating journey through the history and evolution of the communications media in the Dominican Republic. From telegraphy through telephony, radio and television to the internet and new technologies, the tools that human beings have created to enable us to communicate are a fundamental part of our daily lives, particularly in the twenty-first century, and this is the perfect place to learn about them in some depth.
Located in Calle Isabel La Católica, right in the heart of the Ciudad Colonial, the modern building that houses the Centro Cultural de las Telecomunicaciones stands out against the colonial style of architecture that predominates in this area. The opening hours are 9.00 am – 4.00 pm from Tuesday to Saturday, and 10.00 am – 5.00 pm on Sundays. Closed on Mondays.
Casa de Tostado: a traditional Dominican home.