Santo Domingo:
If any city in the world could be declared the perfect holiday destination, then Santo Domingo would probably be a prime candidate, with its modern sophistication, old world charm and Latin charisma, not to mention its position on the tropical southern Caribbean coast of the Dominican Republic.The only blight on the landscape is the crime rate: robbery, muggings and petty theft are common so guard your belongings with care. Santo Domingo is used to being first: it was the first European settlement in the 'New World'; it boasts the western hemisphere's first cathedral, first monastery, first hospital, first university and first law court. This rich colonial heritage, sparked off in the 15th century by legendary Spanish explorer Christopher Columbus, has been turned into a Unesco World Heritage Site in the heart of the city.The most modern memento to Santo Domingo’s status as the oldest European city in the Americas is a mammoth structure built on the eastern shore of the Ozama River in the early 1990s to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ arrival in the New World.
