Monuments to visit San Cristóbal

This six-storey palace, built on Trujillo's orders on a hill overlooking the city in the 1930s, is a massive concrete building with no particular charm. Its construction was entrusted to the engineer Henry Gazón. The dictator never occupied the place, but he had the walls decorated with frescos of the famous Spanish painter José Vela Zanetti (1913-1999). The palace was transformed into a hotel in the 1970s and then abandoned in the late 1990s, before renovations were undertaken.

For those curious about the Trujillo era, the dictator's country house, once lined with mahogany on the inside (hence the name mahogany house), contains an important collection of objects that belonged to him. It is located a few kilometers from the city, at the end of a stony track that should be restored. To get there, in fact, you have to go towards La Toma and turn left at the aqueduct. This is not a priority visit on your trip, but it can be arranged while exploring the surroundings.

The building, which houses the headquarters of the San Cristóbal Town Hall, was inaugurated in 1937. Easily recognizable by the small tower - on the top of which stands a clock - flanked by a one-story building, it was built entirely of reinforced concrete, in an architectural style of baroque-victorian inspiration, typical of the beginning of the last century. Because of its design and its representation in Dominican architecture, it has been declared "Cultural Heritage of the Dominican Republic". A construction that deserves a quick look.