There Is Plenty To See In Panama City Besides The Canal

(MENAFN- Newsroom Panama) Office towers and luxury hotels rise along the sea in Panama City, a Central American gateway between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean. While many visitors come to view the workings of the famous Panama Canal connecting these two bodies of water, this cosmopolitan metropolis offers enriching experiences for discerning travelers also looking to immerse themselves in the region's history and culture. Here are five things to see and do - beyond the canal - to enhance your urban Panamanian itinerary.

Panama Viejo: Unearthing the Past

Start by going back in time to the oldest European settlement on the Pacific coast of the Americas. Though Indigenous people lived here for millennia, in 1519, Spanish colonists began constructing a community in what is now known as Panama Viejo, establishing the roots of the modern city. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, Panama Viejo includes an informative museum that traces this history amid the ruins of the 16th-century village. Climb the 115 steps inside the cathedral tower to a lookout with vistas across the ancient and modern cities.

Museo de la Mola: Celebrating Indigenous Art and Culture

A contemporary gallery in the Casco Antiguo district, Museo de La Mola showcases the mola, the vibrant embroidered fabrics traditional to the Indigenous Guna people. Along with displays of more than 200 of these textiles, the museum explains the mola's heritage and its importance to the women who make and wear them. Other displays illustrate the symbols that these fabrics incorporate, providing an intriguing introduction to the Guna culture. For post-museum refreshments, head down the block to Fonda Lo Que Hay, where the contemporary Panamanian cuisine starts with modern takes on classics like ceviche, empanadas and crispy pollo frito (fried chicken). But don't overlook more inventive plates like the crunchy yuca tostada layered with tuna carpaccio and spiced up with onion salsa.

Learn the History of the Country's most Famous Landmark.

Panama Canal Museum: A Journey Through the Waterway's Complex History

In a stately 19th-century Casco Antiguo manor, the Panama Canal Museum takes you through the history of the country's noted waterway - an especially timely chronicle given the current political debate over the canal's future. The story begins in the 1500s with the Spaniards' efforts to link the Pacific and Caribbean, first by constructing land-based trading routes and later by building a railroad. The exhibits recount the architectural and political challenges of designing and constructing the waterway and detail how the canal returned to Panama's control in 1999 after decades of U.S. involvement.

Biomuseo: Exploring Panama's Biodiversity

Architect Frank Gehry designed the fanciful, multicolored building along the Amador Causeway that houses the Biomuseo, the country's biodiversity museum. The exhibitions explore both natural and human life, illustrating how the aquatic environments of the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean differ, how various bird species migrate through the Americas and how humans have evolved across the region. Once you've seen the museum's interior, stroll the lush gardens surrounding the building. If you want to venture further, follow the waterfront walkway that extends more than three-and-a-half miles along the causeway, with vistas of the skyline and the surrounding seas.

Coquira Soil Project: Ambitious and Delicious Agritourism

Experience Panama's biodiversity firsthand at the Coquira Soil Project, a farm, garden and restaurant an enterprising young couple established to educate its community and visitors about regenerative agricultural practices. At this agritourism destination, about an hour's drive from the city center, Thomas Patton and his wife, Adriana Roquer, offer garden and farm tours, share ways they're making their land more fertile and take visitors horseback riding through verdant fields where cows and sheep graze. As you meander among the bananas, guavas and sugar cane, you might learn something about next-generation farming, but you'll enjoy a peaceful break from the urban hubbub, too. You'll also lunch on delectably fresh products grown or raised on their land.

Where to Stay

Several Panama City luxury hotels have earned Forbes Travel Guide Recommended ratings for their world-class amenities and service. A short distance from the waterfront, Sofitel Legend Casco Viejo Panama is set in a fully updated 1917 former social club in the city's historic district and mixes the elegance of the French brand with Panamanian charm. At the city-center Waldorf Astoria Panama, the brand's first location in Latin America, you might relax at the rooftop pool or enjoy drinks in the Peacock Alley lounge. In the financial district, at Bristol Panama, pamper yourself in the top-floor spa, where the views extend to the Pacific, and consider how Panama City's location between two seas has been key to its destiny.

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