Exploring Casco Viejo

We spent our last full day in Panama exploring Casco Viejo, the old town part of Panama City. We had the cab driver drop us off at the Seafood Market. We read that the fresh ceviche there is amazing, but the market wasn’t open yet. It was probably around 11:00am. We stood there for a little while watching the fishing boats. 

The fishing boats at the seafood market

More fishing boats with the skyline in the background

    

Walking up to Casco Viejo

We walked up along the edge of Casco Viejo and just started wandering around. It is a truly beautiful section of the city. The French influence on the architecture in this historic district is clear; it reminded us a lot of New Orleans. There is a lot of construction going on in Panama City in general, but it was almost unbearable in Casco Viejo. The neighborhood is in need of the construction being done, but it really does take away from the beauty of it. It was possible to imagine, however, what Casco Viejo would be like without the construction, and we spent much of the day saying out loud how amazing it will be when the construction is finished.

A beautiful balcony in Casco Viejo decorated for Christmas

Another picture of Casco Viejo and a small glimpse of the construction

It looked like it would definitely rain at some point in the day. It started sprinkling about 30 minutes into our wandering and we thought a down pour was imminent so we stopped in a restaurant for a few appetizers and a beer. We went to Diablicos, a Panamanian restaurant near the edge of town close to the water. We had ceviche with plantains, which was awesome, some empanadas and some Panama beers. 

We enjoyed delicious ceviche at Diablicos

Enjoying a birthday beer at Diablicos. There are four main Panamanian beers: Atlas, Balboa, Panama, and Soberana. We liked Panama and Atlas the best.

 The rain never came (or not yet, anyway) so we set off to do some more wandering. We hooked around the outside of Casco Viejo near the water and walked along the Paseo las Bóvedas, which is a long walkway along an old seawall. There are great views of the Panama City skyline, the Amador Causeway and the many ships waiting in the Pacific for their turn to go through the canal. At this point we could really tell that rain would come soon, so we wound our way back into the heart of old town and found a Mexican restaurant called Tequila’s. It did take a while for the rain to start, but when it did, it rained harder than it had on any of the other days. It was windy and dumping rain for about an hour and a half. We ended up having a couple of beers, a birthday tequila shot and eventually we ordered a burrito to share as well. The inside of the restaurant was small and after about an hour of raining, the roof started leaking and water was coming in the building. The atmosphere was nice, and it was a great place to wait out the rain. There were two other groups of people in the restaurant. One couple had their two year old with them. The two year old was out of control which provided us with some great rainy day entertainment. 

The Baroque Golden Altar at the Church of San Jose

After the rain stopped, we ventured back outside and continued the day of wandering. We made our way to the Church of San Jose, which is known for its Baroque Golden Altar. We also walked to the Church and Convent of Santa Domingo completed in 1678 and best known for the Arco Chato (flat arch). 

The flat arch at the Church of Santa Domingo. According to the guidebook this arch was reportedly used as evidence of Panama's seismic stability when the US Senate was deciding where to build a canal. It recently collapsed (this is the rebuilt arch).

After we were finished seeing Casco Viejo, we ended up walking about a mile and a half toward the city before trying to get a cab. The walkway along the water is really beautiful. We were definitely tired at this point and losing steam quickly. We’d probably already walked more than 3 or 4 miles in the day easily so we were ready to be done. We finally made our way off the walkway across a few streets and back over to a neighborhood and tried to get a cab. Unfortunately it was almost as difficult on this day (a Monday) around rush hour to get a cab as it had been on our first day. No cab driver wanted to go to the area where our hotel was located (El Cangrejo, Bellavista). The traffic is atrocious in Panama City and we assume they just didn’t want to battle the drive even if it was only 2 miles or so. We did eventually find a kind cab driver who was willing to go that 

direction.

The view from the walkway as we headed toward the city

We rested a little in the room and then got ready to head to dinner. The plan was to go to a restaurant that is known for traditional Panama food (Tinajas). We checked online at least five times and all the reviews and information indicated that it is only closed on Sundays. I think we checked so many times because we had a bad feeling it wouldn’t be open, but we were assured every time we looked it up that it was open on Mondays. The walk from our hotel to the restaurant was about 15-20 minutes. When we arrived we weren’t that surprised to find that it was closed, but we were really disappointed. Instead of pulling our usual wandering around for an hour looking for a new place to eat, we decided to just try the somewhat chain restaurant looking place across the street from Tinajas. It was already 9:30 and we just needed to eat dinner. The food was a little expensive and not that great, but the Monday night football game was on, so we enjoyed watching some football and enjoying dinner regardless. We took a leisurely walk back to the hotel and then had a beer on the roof before heading to bed.