Alcázar de Colón

The Alcázar de Colón is the 16th-century palace that Diego Columbus, son of Christopher, built on a bluff above the Ozama River. It served as the seat of Spanish colonial rule over the Americas for much of the 16th century and has been restored and converted into a museum displaying period furniture, tapestries, and artwork. The restoration is thorough enough to give a genuine sense of colonial-era domestic life at the very top of the social order.

The palace occupies one end of the Plaza de la Hispanidad (also called the Plaza España), a large open square that is one of the more pleasant places to sit in the Zona Colonial in the evening when craft stalls set up and restaurants open their terraces.

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A story
Diego Columbus, Christopher's son, built this palace in 1514 without a single nail — the entire structure is held together by mortar and stone. It became the seat of Spanish power in the Americas, where governors of New Spain, Mexico, and Peru were appointed. Diego never received the titles his father had been promised, and sued the Spanish Crown for compensation — a legal case his descendants pursued for over a century.