Samana
The Town of Samaná
Samana features typically local, brightly painted houses, and for some 9 months of the year, it is generally peaceful with only a handful of tourists around its streets.
For now, though the Samana Peninsula, studded as it is with its small jewels – Samana town, Las Terrenas, and Las Galeras – remains a tropical haven. Verdant dense forests, relatively quiet for most of the year, a peaceful place to escape to – without the presence of over-bearing development – it is an enticing ‘backwater’ for those who want to get away from the tourist crowds.
Samana Peninsula, but it is a pleasant small seafront, the town and it does achieve a kind of prominence at least for part of the year.
A few years ago (2014), Samana was our first time in an all-inclusive at The Grand Paradise. It was a family vacation with our 9-month-old grandson and my son.
It was an experience with a baby when the bus from the airport to the hotel broke down and we waited for hours.. He was an angel.
The next year I came with my sisters.
From the hotel to many beaches and finishing in Las Terrenas.
Either way, when you arrive at Las Terrenas, you will find that this former fishing village has grown into a lively resort over the past thirty years. And has all the necessary amenities to ensure that you have that worry-free vacation you desire.
Make it down to the seafront at Las Terrenas and you are bound to be struck by the beauty of the undeveloped beaches of white sand that run for miles in each direction.
Las Terrenas is also blessed with a minimal rainy season (even for the Dominican Republic) and is consistently warm throughout the year. So it is, perhaps, little wonder that visitors from around the world came seeking their own ‘worry free vacation’… and decided to stay.
You will find that there is a wide range of restaurants, bars, and discos that provide for tourists. Many of these are owned and/or run by the ‘ex-pats’. Las Terrenas is now home to ‘settlers’ from various parts of Europe (e.g. France, Germany, Switzerland, UK) as well as from Canada and North America. Such is the international nature of this town of nearly 15,000 inhabitants.
Grand Paradise Hotel
The Grand Paradise is in a Bay area with beautiful water and quiet.
The hotel was nice, the staff very friendly. The entertainment was good.
The stay at this hotel was worth every second and every penny. The food was delicious.
The village is a 15 minutes walk following the beach.
Dominican Republic * Jewel of the Caribbean
The Rare Caribbean Gemstone
I make jewelry, so I am looking for stones all the time.
On my trip to Samana, I was told the story about the Larimar stone.
This is one version I learn.
The name Larimar comes from an artisan using his daughter, “LARISSA”, and the Spanish word for sea, “MAR”.
It is likely that the Taino Indians who inhabited the island for a thousand years before Columbus arrived knew of Larimar, but it was not until 1916 that the first official records existed. A Spanish missionary was in the area looking for gold and other precious resources that could be exploited and there are records of him requesting permission from the Dominican Government to explore the area. However, it is unclear what he knew and when he was sent back to Spain. There is no more mention of the stone until the 1950s. In 1957, the inhabitants of a small fishing village where finding fragments of a blue gemstone, we now know as Larimar, washing up on the local beach. It was believed that the larimar stones came from the sea and it took another 20 years for anyone to be interested enough to investigate this further.