The Centro León is one of the best museums in the Caribbean and the single best reason to spend a day in Santiago. The complex, opened in 2003 by the León Jimenes tobacco family, includes a large permanent collection of 20th-century Dominican art (Jaime Colson, Dario Suro, and contemporary names you may not know but should), an anthropology gallery covering Taíno and African heritage, and an excellent gallery on the cigar industry — including a working tobacco factory you can watch through a glass wall.
The architecture, by the Dominican firm Sergio Reyes Architects, is impressive in its own right: shaded courtyards, indigenous gardens, and a clean modern aesthetic. There is also a good cafe and a film cinema in the complex. Closed Mondays. One of the few Dominican cultural institutions that justifies an international art-museum entry fee, but admission here is modest.