it's safe to say we are not at the beach anymore no playa at the moment we'll get
to another beach don't worry but right now we're in the big city we have come to santo
domingo it is our first time in a new city in almost two years we are in the colonial zone
absolutely gorgeous cannot wait to show it to you so santo domingo happens to be the oldest
inhabited city in all of the americas it dates back to 1496. therefore tons of historical things
here that we will be visiting a lot of them today starting off in a place called independence park
what are these statues behind you well i tried to read a little bit about it and by the way i'm
just going to say this right up front we are not historians it's not what our channel is about if
you're the first time watching we try to throw in a few little facts that we read online but
definitely not historians so if we don't get things exactly right apologies but we're going
to try to give you a little bit of information today what i read was there are i think looks
like there's more than 27 but i thought it read 27 but there's definitely more than 20
statues of the people that founded the dominican republic so for the longest time we had no idea
where santa domingo was the only time we ever heard the name was basically in tv shows and
movies like period pieces specifically right you know when someone's like going to the new world
and they're going to santo domingo i just remember probably 10 years ago being like where where is
central domingo do they even exist anymore and then looking it up and being like wait a second
i feel like an idiot because it's the capital of the dominican but really when you're in canada
most people that visit the dominican go to resorts and they're like all inclusive resorts to come to
the dominican because there aren't really around here so they go to like punta cana that kind of
well now we know what they mean when they say i'm going to santa domingo santo domingo here
so what do you think this place is so i actually had to look it up because i wanted
to tell you guys a little bit about it because it looks really really cool inside it's called
the alter de la patria it holds the it's a basically a mausoleum for the three founding
fathers of the dominican republic it is so beautiful inside here what it reminds
me of just a little bit is the lincoln memorial in washington d.c what a spot
we're now just coming up on one of the main pedestrian roads here i think it's
called el conde it's quite the spot it connects to the park the park starts at the beginning and then
it goes all the way down to i think maybe a church what we'll see in a minute but it's like the main
pedestrian street here at least in the old part of the city the colonial city i'm not sure about the
rest of the city if there are some pedestrian-only streets but yeah definitely it's very very
beautiful here what it reminds me of is cartagena a little bit or old panama city the buildings are
just spectacular there's lots of art on the road there's vendors and of course there's a lot of
people around but because we're at the tail end of the pandemic it's not as busy as normal it's
not as busy and we also notice a lot of like for sale or for rent around a lot of stuff clothes so
i don't know if it's normally like that anyway or if it's a pandemic you know a lot of places closed
just realized something we didn't tell you guys who we are yet if you happen to be new around
here i am trevor the woman holding the camera there is anna we are the delightful travelers
make sure to hit the subscribe button and click the like button we have so much more
coming up on the dominican republic if you're not new it's very nice to see you guys again
well i think it's time we get a drink here on the side of the road huh
seems like a good idea you can't do this at home it's getting pretty loud around here
well cheers east we don't do this too often no we don't often get beer to go we've been in canada
for what like 16 months and it's definitely illegal in our part of canada to get a beer
and drink it outside in public unfortunately anytime we do it in a foreign city we always
talk about how odd it feels like when we're doing something wrong or like we shouldn't be doing it
and everybody that's from that place always laughs at us because they're so used here's something
funny the police just walked by when they started filming the scene right behind you you didn't see
it no i didn't so they're okay with it okay we're okay as we're having this refreshing beer here i
just can't stop admiring the beautiful buildings you can see they have like rod iron on the patios
as well what it reminds me of of just from the places we've been it's a little bit of cartage
a little bit of old panama city a tiny bit of merida all wrapped into one and then you have
santo domingo except this was the very first city so maybe the other cities are like this
city so we have just come over to columbus park now this is one of the main tourist attractions
and one of the biggest features at the end of this street the independence park's way
on the other side now we're here you can hear drums in the background you probably see lots
of pigeons i mean lots and lots of pigeons are screaming kids because there's so many pigeons and
there's a very important statue behind us that's christopher columbus back there
to go along with the oldest city here in the americas we also have the oldest cathedral
as well you can tell just by looking at it that it's really really old it is called the cathedral
of santa maria le manore probably saying that incorrectly uh it actually was built in 1540 or
between 1514 and 1541. we've never seen anything like this church before actually i find it looks
a little bit like a castle normally they don't look this old so there's a reason for that because
it is the oldest in the americas but wow this is spectacular if you're coming here make sure to
stop by this place so it is now the next day we figured before we go out and explore again we'd
show you where we're staying we're staying at a uh boutique hotel called casa sanchez very very cute
nice little rooftop is where we are now yeah look at that it's like a hot tub but it's not hot or
poor it's hot but i don't think you'd want a hot tub in this weather because it's really really hot
no there's some loungers oh there's also some kittens but it's the middle of the day and i think
they're usually sleeping the kittens hide under there but look we'll show you guys so here is the
loungers and then you have like tables over there it's very well thought out it is and you can't
really tell from here but it's like i'm assuming a relatively historic building because it's got all
like spanish tile and it's very colonial feeling it's really really a gorgeous spot and it's very
well priced as well there is something else i want to show you guys there's a gorgeous pool here
on the first floor so right down there you'll see it now it's absolutely spectacular these buildings
from the outside are very interesting we will show you we're going back out to explore don't
worry we're going to take you with us but we'll show you the outside of the building because you
would never think this is all in here come inside we will give you a very quick room tour excuse
the mess we've been here a couple of days and it's relatively cluttered but you'll still get the idea
the tv here obviously we're not using it because we have a bunch of bottles in front of it and this
is trevor's little workstation he's got going on over here you gotta have that got the bed here
it's a queen i think it feels we just came from a king-sized bed so it feels really small so it
might be a queen or a double i'm not quite sure i love the tile on the wall yeah the tile is awesome
then you have a bathroom over this way yeah really really big bathroom super spacious again really
neat tile on the floor something that you have to love the most spanish colonial style architecture
there's always really really amazing tiles yeah so it's not a big room
but it does it's pretty simple and basic but i love the outdoor space here
so this is the building behind me here it's the blue one it's called casa sanchez if you're
curious we just love that kind of architecture because you never know what's back there
it's just a straight up basically wall from the sidewalk but back there there's pools there's
multiple rooms there's bars there's a tiny little like cafe section to eat you never know
all right first stop on the next day here we've landed ourselves in a little squash i should say
a big square really big square it's called the plaza de espana it's huge i think they use it
for like events and things because right now with nobody in it it kind of feels like or it looks
like a big parking lot or something but i imagine at times it's packed full of people with yeah
concerts and that kind of thing but behind us is the alcazar the cologne it's one of
the main things to visit while you're here in this part of the city apparently well
nowadays it's a museum but back in the day it was the home of the son of christopher columbus
yeah my fun little fact for you it's the only known residence in the americas of
the columbus family here's what i like about this square you can probably hear a little bit
of music happening there's families here it's sunday there's also lots of cafes
and restaurants it's just a lot of fun to be here it is it's one of the places you definitely have
to visit and i know whenever you read like a blog post or watch someone's video on here they always
say go eat at one of the cafes and just people watching there's not that many people out at the
moment no but it is a good people watching place we can't confirm because we did this the other day
i know we said this before but does it ever feel good to be back
out exploring again all you original delightful viewers you know what i'm talking about it's just
like the old times how about this building though this was built between 15 11 and 15
14. just look at the shape it's in you can see all these arches and the pillars
it is gorgeous we love coming across stuff like this especially in this city
it's funny how in heat like this i can go from like ah it's not too bad i'm doing okay to like i
am melting and i'm going to die on the side of the road so it's important obviously to stay hydrated
we just bought one from a guy like selling it out of a cart sort of thing i thought he was
gonna like totally try to rip us off but it was 25 pesos which i think is like 50 cents isn't it
yeah it is yeah so that's not bad that's not bad and if you're wondering what the temperature is
it's uh pretty much november and it's about 31 or 32 degrees something like that yeah you need to
get a hat and uh save me some of the agua i don't know this city has really taken us by surprise we
didn't know exactly what to think coming in but the buildings around here are beautiful
and it's been so much fun just kind of walking around getting a little bit lost i think we read
is it is the old town like one kilometer by one column yeah it's not very big at all
yeah so it's easy to get around but it still feels big at the same time yeah it doesn't feel super
tiny by any means but at least easy to walk all right next stop on the list what is this called
again we are at the fort ozama and there is a castle behind me pretty looks a cool looking
castle too there's also uh well over this way there's a statue of someone named some guy gonzalo
fernandez yeah i'll have to look up to see who that is but look at this and it's just a big open
field it is yeah and there's actually a river right below us we'll go see that in a second
but i guess the castle itself or the fort is named after the river so it must be the river ozama so
if you're wondering how much this costs to get in it's about 70 pesos each so we're talking about
three three dollars two three dollars both of us yeah which is amazing because it's quite the
place and you'll probably notice there's not a lot of tourists here i think in normal times in like
a high season this would probably be i know i'm waiting for like a big tour group to come in and
like invade or something yeah that could happen but look at the size of this look if i bend down
that'll show you for scale i mean this thing is absolutely massive okay up the stairs we go
what do you see here
oh it's just like a big big old room yeah sounds like a little lookout oh cool you can go
right in here so i wasn't lying there is actually a river right here really good view right out of
this window i think the mouth of the river is actually not far down here so that probably
makes sense why they would put a fort right here because the ocean is basically just ocean
and then like the river just starts right there can you picture being a guard right
here no guard anna so we've made it all the way up to the top here and now i see why they chose
this point you can see the river and you can also see the ocean this is a proper looking
fortress a very castle lake up here at the top one thing i think i see as well as a
cruise ship but i can't tell if it's a ferry so we must be really close to the porch maybe
if any of you are from here and you're dominicans let us know because this is our first time kind of
scoping it out but the view up here is awesome you have to come to this sport
to kind of check all of this out so something i don't think we've said yet in this video is
that the colonial zone itself is a unesco world heritage site as is this fort here gonna go to my
phone for some stuff it's recognized by unesco as being the oldest military construction of european
origin in the americas so what is that are there like military sites that are non-european origins
like mayan origin does anybody know the answer to that question what would be considered like a
a military site in the americas that's not of european origin i never thought about that before
so it was built between 1502 to 1508 by the spanish of course all right we're back out on the
streets here now but this street specifically is beautiful it is it's one of the nicest streets we
come across i'm not sure i missed the name of it but yeah it's pretty there's lots of like really
well done done over buildings yeah renovated them really nicely from the outside there's no power
lines yeah the no power lines i was wondering if you're gonna say that that's what i noticed
right away and it's just really really colorful but we're trying a good place to start probably
a good place to come for your instagram photos absolutely we are trying to find a specific spot
right now though to get a drink so we've come over to a place called sugar cane i think it's
actually a rum museum but they have this amazing rooftop bar you can probably see the view behind
me of this like old 500 year old church that we went to earlier it's just an amazing amazing view
so i went for a rum drink of course because we are at a rum place went for a mojito one of my
favorite drinks but it's made with chinola which i believe is uh and i always create the word for
it passion fruit fashion fruit passion fruit but it's so delicious so i ended up going for a
presidente light here the dominican cerveza staple now i don't know if we said it already but we're
trying to be a little discreet we tried to get in here and right away they said no camera put away
the camera we were like guys we're not doing a full-on photo shoot we're here to just talk about
your rooftop and this is kind of promotion but anyway we took a camera anyway but
it's feeling pretty good right now the view is amazing here of the square and that old
church that we saw at the first of the video this town just has it all including nice cold
you guessed it i'm digging these presidente lights i kind of like the more than presidente
normale at the moment goes well nice and free all nice and cold and such such a good view
up here you guys well that was a fun day we haven't been exploring like that in almost
two years and it's just it feels so good and i feel like we're gonna be saying this for months
now it feels so good but it really really does it's refreshing it feels new again it's working
we're basically going to be broken records so you guys will hear us say this over and over because
we're having fun again and not that we weren't nova scotia we love nova scotia but but this is
what we love this is what we do this is what we live for yeah that being hot weather hot weather
in new cities and new experiences exploring yeah new things around one thing we always say is we
love not knowing literally what's around the corner and it's fun to be in a new city and
experiencing that so if you guys got this far in the video and you don't know who we are
trevor anna delightful travelers make sure to hit subscribe the thumbs up button leave us a comment
let us know what you think if you do know who we are thank you for always coming along
in these videos we absolutely love love it and there'll be loads more dominican
content coming up in the next few months but i think in the next video i might try some
food primarily focusing on like dominican and caribbean food but yeah we'll see what happens
it's going to be fun because there's a lot of little local places here around the colonial zone
however there are some kind of fusion style restaurants as well with dominican food yeah some
really cool looking places so we're excited to try that for sure and you guys know we like to eat
we do and we're due for a food video it's been a while it's been a while since we did a proper food
video but it's coming in the next one so get ready guys but thanks for coming along today it's been a
blast all right guys that's it from santo domingo wishing you delightful travels see you soon