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Fernando Rey festivities are in honor of the 16th-century Spanish monarch, turned into local patron saint.

Trujillo’s monument is not to everyone’s taste, but a climb to the top of the tower results in a wonderful view over the surprisingly large city and the surrounding countryside. The lift, alas, is out of use, but the exertion is well worth the effort (see Monumento a los Héroes de la Restauración, Monumento a los Héroes de la Restauración).

“To die dreaming” is the poetic name for a blend of orange juice, milk, and ice.

Choose from a varied menu encompassing pizza, imported meat, fresh fish, and seafood.

Obviously, the least-loved of natural inhabitants, these irritating creatures proliferate in the swampy conditions. They can create a genuine health hazard, and cases of dengue fever and malaria have been reported near Haiti.

This museum is a surprising oasis of fine art within an uptown car showroom. The private collection here encompasses big names of modern Dominican art such as Jaime Colson, the master of rustic realism, and the Spanish anarchist exile, José Vela Zanetti, whose impressionistic celebration of peasant life forms the centerpiece of the swanky gallery.

The four-story modern art gallery demonstrates the vitality and range of contemporary Dominican creativity. Permanent exhibitions are interspersed with temporary shows, revealing a tension between bucolic paintings of idealized rural life and darker, more sinister meditations on poverty and the country’s violent past.

Not a museum as the name suggests, but a great Spanish restaurant serving delicious tapas.

The small exhibition next door to Sosúa’s synagogue tells the story of the country’s Jewish community, invited by Trujillo in 1940 to form an agricultural colony. Photographs, letters, and a sprinkling of 1940s artifacts explain how they fled the Nazis, settled in this North Coast town, and started a dairy cooperative.