Casco Viejo

Hola a todos,
Today I visited Casco Viejo, an old neighborhood in Panama City. If you remember from the last entry, Panama City was the first European-built city in the Americas. It was begun around 1513 by Spanish conquistadores. The conquistadores built the city facing the Pacific Ocean, which made it very accessible by sea--too accessible, in fact, because the city was attacked and destroyed by pirates in 1519. The city center was moved to a more easily defensible spot, in what is now the present-day barrio of Casco Viejo.

Casco Viejo is an important government and cultural center for Panama. It houses the Institute of Culture, the National Theater, various government institutions such as the ministry of foreign affairs, and the president's house. There's also some really great colonial architecture in the neighborhood, as well as a fantastic view of the commercial center of Panama across a small bay.

The president of Panama's house:


A pretty sweet view of the city:


Some of the colonial architecture I was talking about:



And some artwork in Casco Viejo:


And finally, the food picture of the day--patacones. Patacones are plantains that are fried, mashed, and fried again. They are, I assure you, quite tasty.



I'm going on a sort of random road trip to the province of Chiriquí tonight, so I may not get a chance to post again for a while. ¡Hasta pronto!