Travel Guide - Dominican Republic?

I'm going to Santo Domingo at the end of the month. But I'm not having any luck finding good resource websites with travel information. I'm not going to hang at resorts or the beach. I really want to visit the city and not hang around tourists. Any suggestions??

I'm looking for street maps mainly.

U can get one at the airport.

The trip advisor forums are really informational.

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowForum-g147289-i293-Santo_Domingo_Dominican_Republic.html

For many years I have tried to get a road map of Santo Domingo on line without any luck. The best thing I could suggest is to buy one when you get to Santo Domingo at any library or gas station. As per suggestion I would recommend the following sites:

Parque Independencia- Calle Independencia (Indepencia Street) is at the begging of this mayor street and this is a park where our three fathers of our nation are buried. This is also one of the entrance to the colonial zone of the city. If you walk to one of the extremes of the park you will see this huge rock door that opens to a main walk-in road called “El Conde”. This is a commercial street that makes you go deep into the colonial city, at the end of this road you will find “La plaza de Colon” (Christopher Colombus’ park) and on one side the first cathedral built in the Americas called “Catedral Primada de America”. In this area there are many interesting things to see since most houses are from the colonial era, a Hard Rock Café is there too; once in the park you can ask where the “Alcazar” is (this was the house of Diego Columbus which was Columbus’ son) with a huge plaza that has a view of the commercial river of that time.

These are other interesting places to visit-
Plaza Central – this is one of our ok malls (located at 27 de Febrero Ave. w/ Wiston Churchill Ave.)
La Sirena – huge store where you can get nice soveniers at a cheaper price than a tourist shop (Winston Churchill Ave. w/ Roberto Pastoriza St)
Acropolis – this is big commercial building where you can shop and eat. (Winston Churchill Ave. a few block south of La Sirena)
Visit Lincoln Ave. at night to get the young people ambiance and check out some Cafés (**there is also many nice Cafes in the colonial Zone)
Ruinas de San Francisco – these are some ruins from a Monastery from the Colonial times too, nice experience and excellent picture place
El Malecon – (George Washington Ave.) Cant leave the city before visiting this site at night time, a water front with commercial spots and music (sometime live)

There are many other places I could recommend but I would just leave you with the site bellow

If you want you can check out the DR1.com forums. The people on there are very helpful. When I was looking around for info on traveling to Barahona, I received alot of responses.

They sell maps at toursty places on the "conde" Dominicans don't necessarily know things by street names so the best people to ask where an address is are the public transit people. Warning, they will hassle you about taking you there and for double the price. Use your street smarts and hopefully Dominican Spanish. I'm a volunteer and don't hang out with tourists, so there are backroad hostels and local eats if you dig. For one hostel, I pay $3 a night and it's clean and well run. As for food, try Mangu, Batidas, and Sancocho.