Casa Colonial

Puerto Plata is one of the most important ports of the country which exports agriculture products from the north coast (run, coffee, sugar cane, cacao...).

The city itself only has little charm and some old antique constructions, a church in luperon which is very beautiful, a jailhouse which was build before the colonization in 1514. The city of Puerto Plata was very affected by the last earthquake in September 2003 you yourself can still see some cracks in public buildings. Puerto Plata is an alive and animated city, just like the Malecón shows it on the weekends or holidays, where the Dominicans get together and party, one can surely see that when you see more trash on the beach than sand.

Take a look at...

• Photo gallery of Puerto Plata
• Weather forecast for Puerto Plata

Plaza of Puerto Plata

About visiting the city, you can see some beautiful antique constructions along the road of the Malecón. La fortaleza de San Felipe, which today is a military museum, is one of the rarest contructions left by the colonization in 1514. You can also visit the Amber museum which has some very interesting pieces with inclusions of rare (spiders, ants, ...), the logo of the museum will remind all you fanatics of movies (who said dinosaurs??)Jurassic Park

Also you can visit the fabric of Brugal (the most famous trademark of the Dominican Republic), but you wont find any extraordinary things there except some good tasting rum..! One of the nicest activities is the mountain "Isabel de Torres" which stands like a queen over the city of Puerto Plata, you can go up on the mountain thanks to a cable car, on a sunny and clear day you can see over the whole city, but not to forget their also exists a beautiful beach playa Costambar which is located to the west of the city .

You can also visit Playa Dorado a big hotel complex (more than 10 hotels) with a beautiful golf curse and some very nice shopping stores.

Below here you can see the Map of Puerto Plata, please click on it to enlarge it so you can see the names of the streets. Also on the map you can find important locations like Bus stops of Caribe Tours and others.

Map of Puerto Plata

Transport in Puerto Plata

• The international airport of Puerto Plata (Gregorio Luperón) is located to the east on the main road to Sosúa
• Inside the city their are busstops from the company Caribe Tour and Metro which go to Santo Domingo and the rest of the country.
• A public transport stop (taxi publico) is located on the top of the city, their directions are to the west torts sosua all the way to Las Terrenas. You can recognize them thanks to a taxi sign (red and blue colored) on top of the cars and because they stop nearly anywhere and always in front of the airport, they are really economic.
  If you travel larger distances with them it is necessary to change into a different public taxi to get where you want to go, but those changes are easily done with no concern.
• And of course you can find moto conchos and taxis all around the city.

Shopping in Puerto Plata

Their are various ATM machines around the city one of them you can find in the Banco Popular in front of the Church in the Luperon Park.

On the other side of the Park you can find a shopping center "Casa Nelson". For those who want to shop some new clothing here is a direction to remember, when you are standing in front of Casa Nelson you take a left and straight along you find the Tienda Jimenez, another shopping center where you can buy quality cloths and shoes. If you would like to buy amber or jewelery their are two directions to take, first one is the Amber Museum, but this is very expensive and the second one is the Amber Fabric where you can find amber, larimar and other jewelry and even souvenirs. You will be received with a cigar or a home made coffee, in both stores you have to negotiate the prices sometimes. When you arrive in the city of Puerto Plata you will be approach by Tourist Guides which are recognizeable thanks to their t-shirts and badges, they will guide you trough the city, but attention they expect money.

Communication in Puerto Plata

You can find various Internet Cafes one of them is located in front of an Orange shop in the center of the city, also their are calling centers from Verizon.