See the video below from International Living’s Panama editor, Jessica Ramesch. Jessica is in historic Casco Viejo in Panama City, which was founded in 1673. Here, you’ll find cobblestone streets, stately churches that are more than 300 years old, and French and neoclassic style colonial constructed buildings.

Casco Viejo is the oldest city on the Pacific Coast of the Americas, located at the mouth of the Panama Canal.

In 1997, UNESCO declared Casco Viejo a World Heritage Site. Today, it is revered as the historic center of Panama City. Two- and three-story houses with flower-adorned balconies overlook narrow streets. At its tip is French Park, where you will find the French Embassy and a monument to the hardy French builders who began the Panama Canal. On one side is an historical Spanish building called Las Bovedas, once a dank jail, but now housing an art gallery and French restaurant. Panama’s Supreme Court was once housed here.

A walkway around the monument offers a nice view of the Amador Causeway, Bridge of the Americas, and Panama City’s skyscraper skyline to the east. A plaque commemorates the firing of canon shots to ward off a Colombian warship and solidify Panama’s independence from Colombia in 1903.

Today you will find more art gallery openings and musical events in Casco Viejo than anywhere else in the city. Restaurants and bars are opening with gusto, tourists are coming in growing numbers, and people from all over now want to make their homes in Casco Viejo.

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