Off the beach, just a day trip away, is Santa Domingo, the oldest European city in the New World. During the Columbus rule Santo Domingo was the center of colonial administration and the launching point for Spanish conquests of Mexico, South and Central America and the rest of the Caribbean. After five centuries, the palace of the Columbus family can still be found here, as well as the city's sixteenth-century cathedral, the oldest in the New World. There is golf, tennis, polo, scuba diving, snorkeling, horseback riding, skeet and clays shooting, deep-sea fishing, sailing, bicycling, bowling and parasailing. Adventurers may go trekking, hiking, rafting, tubing, canyoning, caving, mountain biking, camping, paragliding and cascading.
Baseball is the national sport and passion.