Panama City

The Spanish founded Panamá, now called Panamá Viejo, in 1519 on the Pacific side of the isthmus. It was the western end of a mule road across the land: silver and gold from Peru came up the coast by ship, crossed to the Caribbean side and went on to Spain. The city grew rich on that trade, with churches, convents and a stone cathedral tower that still stands among the ruins.

In 1671 the English privateer Henry Morgan crossed the isthmus with an army, defeated the defenders and took the city. The Spanish set fire to parts of it themselves, and the fire and the sack left the city in ruins. The colonial authorities chose not to rebuild on the same spot. In 1673 they founded a new city on a small rocky peninsula a few kilometres to the west, easier to defend with a sea wall, and that is the district now called Casco Viejo.

For the next two centuries the isthmus was a colonial backwater that woke up whenever a new route was needed. The California gold rush of 1849 brought a railway across the isthmus in 1855, and the idea of a canal was in the air throughout. The French, led by Ferdinand de Lesseps, began digging in 1881 and gave up in 1889 after disease, cost and engineering problems. The United States took over in 1904 and finished the Canal in 1914.

Panama was part of Colombia until 3 November 1903, when it declared independence with US backing and quickly signed the treaty that gave the United States rights to build and run the Canal and a strip of land around it, the Canal Zone. Under treaties signed in 1977, the zone was dissolved and the Canal was handed to Panama on 31 December 1999. Panama now runs the waterway through the Panama Canal Authority, and its income is a large part of the national economy.

You can walk through the layers in a day. Panamá Viejo is the Spanish ruin, Casco Viejo is the second city, the Canal Museum tells the French and American story, and the Miraflores Locks show the machine in use.

The Panama Canal is about 82 kilometres long from the Pacific to the Atlantic, and it works without a single pump moving water. Ships enter a chamber, the gates close behind them, and water flows in by gravity from the lake above to lift the ship to the next level. On the Pacific side, the ships are lifted in two steps at Miraflores and one at Pedro Miguel to reach the artificial Lake Gatún, about 26 metres above sea level. They cross the lake and then go down on the Caribbean side by the three chambers of the Gatún Locks. A full transit takes about eight to ten hours.

The original locks opened in 1914, and their chambers are about 33 metres wide, which set the maximum size of a ship for a century: the so-called Panamax. In 2016 a third set of locks opened, on the Pacific side at Cocolí and on the Atlantic side at Agua Clara, with chambers about 55 metres wide. These take much larger ships, and they reuse a share of the water in side basins. Both sets of locks work at the same time, so on a busy morning you may see a small ship in the old locks and a giant container vessel elsewhere.

The easiest place to see the machine is the Miraflores Locks on the city's north-west edge. The visitor centre has terraces that look directly over the chambers, a small museum, a film and a cafe. The main point of a visit is to time it for a ship: most transits pass in the morning and late afternoon, and the Canal authority publishes a schedule. A ship takes about ten to twenty minutes to be lifted, and you watch the gates open, the water rise and the small locomotives, called mules, hold the ship in place.

Two other things help. The Canal Museum in Casco Viejo tells the story of the French attempt and the American construction, with maps, models and photographs, and it explains the locks before you see them. And a partial transit tour on the Amador Causeway takes you through part of the Canal, which is the closest you can come to feeling the lift.

Some numbers put it in context. Ships pay tolls that run from thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Canal carries a few percent of world trade, and the lake that feeds the locks depends on rainfall, so in dry years the authority limits the number of daily transits. Check the schedule and any restrictions before you plan around a specific ship.

Casco Viejo, also called Casco Antiguo, is the district founded in 1673 on the peninsula that replaced the ruined first city. It is a small, walkable area of narrow streets, plazas, churches and balconied houses in Spanish, French and Caribbean styles, and it was inscribed as part of a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1997. For decades it decayed, with crowded tenements and crumbling facades. Since the early 2000s many buildings have been restored as hotels, restaurants and flats, and the district now looks polished in places and rough in others.

The main plaza is Plaza de la Independencia, where the cathedral, the Canal Museum and cafés face each other. A few streets away, Plaza de Francia, at the tip of the peninsula, has a monument to the French Canal effort and a view across the bay to the skyline. A short walk along the sea wall brings you past the old vaults, called Las Bóvedas, and the Presidential Palace, known as the Palacio de las Garzas, or Palace of the Herons. Do not photograph the guards up close.

The Iglesia de San José holds a gilded baroque altar. A local story says a priest painted the altar to hide it from Henry Morgan's men before the sack of 1671, and that the altar was moved to the new church. Historians question the details, but the altar is still worth a short visit.

Two practical points matter. First, the heat: cobbled streets and stone walls hold the sun, so the good hours are before 10:00 and after 17:00. Second, the edges. The streets that border Casco Viejo, towards Santa Ana and El Chorrillo, are not safe to wander, especially at night. Keep to the main plazas and lit streets, take a car door to door after dark, and choose a hotel with a drop-off within a hundred metres.

The district works best as a morning walk and an evening meal. Start early, see the cathedral, the plaza and the museum, take lunch at a fonda or a café, rest in air conditioning, and come back at dusk for the sea wall and a drink. Cobbles and high kerbs are hard with a stroller or a wheelchair, and luggage should go straight from car to hotel door.

Across the bay from Casco Viejo rise the towers of the modern city: Punta Paitilla, Punta Pacífica and Costa del Este. Panama City has one of the tallest skylines in Latin America, built on banking, shipping and real estate, and it looks best at dusk from the sea wall in the old town. Below the towers, the Cinta Costera, a long seaside path, gives walkers and cyclists a flat route along the bay.

In the bay, dozens of ships wait at anchor for their turn to enter the Canal, and they give the view its character. To get closer, take the Amador Causeway, a road and path about six kilometres long that links Panama's mainland to three small islands. It was built in the early 1900s from the rock dug out of the Culebra Cut to protect the Pacific entrance of the Canal, and it is now a park with cycle hire, restaurants and a promenade.

At the start of the causeway stands the Biomuseo, designed by the architect Frank Gehry and opened in 2014. The building is a set of tilted, brightly coloured roofs, and inside eight galleries explain how the land bridge of Panama formed between the two American continents, how it changed the oceans' currents and how animals and plants crossed it. It is a good choice for a family or a hot morning, and it takes about 90 minutes.

East of the centre, the ruins of Panamá Viejo, with the cathedral tower you can climb, sit in the middle of new roads and apartment blocks. They are an open, hot site, so go at opening. The visitor centre and small museum provide context, and a walk through the stones takes about an hour.

These sights are far apart, and traffic decides how much you can do. The causeway is 15 minutes by car from Casco Viejo in light traffic, the ruins 20 to 30 minutes, and both can double in rush hour. Group by area: the causeway and the Biomuseo in one morning, the ruins in another, and do not try to see the old town, the causeway and the locks on the same day.

Panamanian food is home cooking shaped by the mix of Spanish, African, Indigenous and Caribbean cultures. The everyday meal is a plate of rice, beans, stewed or fried meat or fish, and plantain or salad. The national comfort dish is sancocho, a chicken soup with root vegetables and culantro, a herb with a stronger taste than coriander. Arroz con pollo, ropa vieja (shredded beef) and patacones (twice-fried green plantain slices) appear on most menus.

The cheapest and most local meals are at fondas, small counters and rooms that serve one or two plates of the day for about US$5 to 9. Snacks are fried and cheap: carimañolas, cassava fritters filled with meat, empanadas and hojaldras, fried dough, cost US$1 to 2 each and are sold at bakeries and street stalls. Ceviche, raw sea bass cured in lime with onion and pepper, is the seafood dish to try, and a cup at the Mercado de Mariscos costs US$4 to 8. Eat it early in the day at a counter with fast turnover.

Restaurants in Casco Viejo and on the Amador Causeway cost three to five times as much as a fonda, with tourist prices and a service charge on some bills. They are the place for a long dinner with a view, not for a value lunch. Compare menus at the door and ask about the service charge.

Coffee is a serious subject. The highlands near Boquete grow some of the world's most expensive coffee, including the geisha variety, which has sold at record auction prices. Specialty cafés in Casco Viejo serve it, with an ordinary filter cup at US$3 to 6 and a geisha at US$8 to 20 or more. The cafés are also good air-conditioned breaks.

For drinks, the local lagers are Balboa, Atlas and Panama, at US$2 to 5 in a bar, and seco is a sugar-cane spirit often mixed with milk or juice. Fresh fruit drinks, chichas, and raspao, shaved ice with syrup, cool you down in the afternoon. Ask for bottled water; ice in established places is usually fine.

Panama City is easy to like in the morning and hard in the middle of the day. It is hot and humid all year, with highs of 30 to 33 degrees, and in the wet season, from May to November, heavy rain usually falls after 14:00. Plan outdoor stops between 07:00 and 11:00, rest in air conditioning around midday, and come back out at dusk. Carry water, wear a hat and light clothes, and pack a rain jacket in the wet season.

Transport is the second decision. The Metro is clean and cheap but does not reach Casco Viejo, the locks or the causeway, and buses are hard for visitors. Ride-hailing apps, such as Uber and inDrive, work across the city, with fares of US$4 to 10 across the centre and US$12 to 25 to the locks, and licensed taxis work if you agree the fare before you get in. From Tocumen airport, use the official taxi counter or an app, which costs about US$30 to 40 to Casco Viejo. Traffic can double any ride at rush hour, so leave early for a flight.

Money is simple because the US dollar is the paper money; Panama's own balboa exists only as coins, of the same size as US ones. Cards are accepted in hotels, malls and most restaurants, and cash is needed for markets, fondas, small cafés and some taxis. Tipping is about 10% in restaurants if service is not already added; round up for drivers.

Safety takes common sense. The centre of Casco Viejo is busy and patrolled in the evening, but the streets around its edge are not for wandering, so take a car door to door after dark. Keep phones out of sight near the roadside, where distraction thefts happen. Avoid unofficial guides who ask for money afterwards, and use only licensed operators for boat and rainforest tours. The emergency number is 911.

Manners are relaxed but polite. Say buenos días when you enter a shop or a restaurant, cover shoulders and knees in churches, and ask before photographing people. Do not photograph police or the guards at the presidential palace up close, and stay behind the railings at the locks. A few words of Spanish help with vendors and cooks, though hotel staff usually speak English.

A workable three-day plan is one morning in Casco Viejo with the Canal Museum, one morning at the Miraflores Locks and the market, and one morning on the causeway with the Biomuseo, keeping every afternoon for rest and every evening for a walk on the sea wall or a dinner in the old town.