Get a feel for the Med in Altos de Chavon

Altos de Chavón is an old Mediterranean-style mansion in La Romana, Dominican Republic, constructed on a bluff above the Chavón River. It features a Cultural Center, the National Archaeological Museum, the so-called City of Artists, and a Remarkable Amphitheater. With its cobblestone streets and houses made of coral stone and terracotta, this location is a recreation of a 16th century Italian-Spanish village.

This replica was erected in 1976 in a location with a beautiful view of the Chavón River by Roberto Copa, a former Paramount Studios designer, and Charles Bludhorn, an American industrialist. Its construction began in 1976, when it was necessary to dynamite a mountain of stone in order to clear a road; popular legend has it that he did it to gift it to his daughter on her birthday, although she, who regularly visits Altos de Chavón, rejects this account.

The odd small village of Altos de Chavon, only a stone's throw from the city of La Romana on the southern shore, rising above the bends of the Chavon River, is well worth a visit. With half-timbered Italian-style residences, an ancient-looking Roman amphitheatre, the exquisite masonry of St Stanislaus Church, and a series of cobbled plazas and lanes, it's hard to imagine the entire area was designed and built in the 1970s and 1980s! The town, designed by an Italian architect, is meant to resemble a 16th-century European community. Today, it is jam-packed with superb arts and crafts booths, as well as a number of galleries.