Panama Trip - Day 3

Since each of the mornings followed the same routine, I won't bore you with those details. We left the hotel about 1:00 today and went to the YMCA. It was a great market. Carolyn got a really cute bag and phone case. Doug and Lori got a cute little Manger Scene and a couple of gifts for the kids. We spent a little over an hour shopping then we headed out to be tourists. Panama has three major areas. The first is called Panamá la Vieja. which was built in the 1500s and is the original site of Panama City. It was destroyed in the 1650 when it was plundered by Henry Morgan, a pirate. All the valuables were taken from the city and when they built the next center, most of the bricks and mortar that was left was transported to the site of the next city. Today, all that remains are ruins of the city. Most of the remaining ruins are churches or monasteries since most of the rest of the city was built of wood and was destroyed. Tourism is just really catching on in Panama and so it is not real commercial but they are starting to restore the Panamá la Vieja. Following are a few pictures of the area:





After spending some time at Panamá la Vieja we headed for Casco Viejo which is the historic city and was started in the mid 1600s. We had an exciting drive to the Casco Viejo. We found our way to the area very quickly but when we were where we just had to go up one hill to be there, there was a policeman who would not let us go up the hill. He made us turn. Well, we were now in small, narrow, one-way streets. Of course no signage and so we just drove. Down some of the streets, if the car had one more coat of paint we would have scratched both sides of the car. We continued until we made it to a T in the road. We had to turn right or left but there was on problem. The street we had to turn on to was a pedestrian walk way in the shopping area. But because the street we had come up was one way and very narrow we had no choice so we drove onto the pedestrian walkway and traveled about 4 block. People just ignored us and we passed two or three policemen and they did nothing but it was a bit scary for me. We finally made it back out onto a road and with a little luck we found the Casco Viejo (Historical City) and spent some time walking around it. Here are some pictures of buildings in the Historical City:

This is the city hall.



This is an old church.



This is the church from a different view.



This is looking down one of the streets.



It was getting late and so we stopped at a restaurant near the church and had a very good meal for $8.50. It was another great day.