The Columbus family palace
Built between 1511 and 1514 for Diego Colón, viceroy of the Indies, and his wife María de Toledo, niece of King Ferdinand, the Alcázar was the most important residence in the early Spanish empire. From its rooms the conquest and administration of the New World were directed.
Its design is Mudéjar-Gothic — a Spanish style fusing medieval Christian and Moorish elements — and by tradition it was raised without a single nail. Its loggias look out over the Ozama River and the harbour from which ships set out for the rest of the Americas.
A museum of viceregal life
Ruined and abandoned for centuries, the palace was restored in the 1950s and reopened as the Museo Alcázar de Diego Colón. Its twenty-two rooms are furnished with European tapestries, paintings and furniture of the 15th and 16th centuries, recreating the world of the colonial court.
It faces the Plaza de España, the largest open square in the Colonial Zone, lined today with restaurants beneath the palace walls.
What you'll see
- ✦The Mudéjar-Gothic loggias over the Ozama River
- ✦Twenty-two rooms of period furnishings and tapestries
- ✦The Plaza de España, the Zone's grandest square
- ✦Views toward the old colonial harbour
