Tropical Dreaming

About Casco Viejo

Casco Viejo, also known as Casco Antiguo, is the historic district of Panama City and a UNESCO World Heritage site. Founded in 1673 after the destruction of the original Panama City (Panamá Viejo) by pirates, Casco Viejo features a blend of Spanish, French, and American architectural influences. The neighborhood is known for its beautifully restored colonial buildings, cobblestone streets, and vibrant cultural scene, including museums, churches, boutique hotels, and some of the city’s best restaurants and nightlife. It’s a popular destination for both tourists and locals looking to experience Panama’s history, art, and cuisine in a picturesque setting.

 

Lastly, the district is known for its lively social scene, with rooftop bars offering stunning views of the Panama City skyline. While Panama is largely religious and conservative, Casco Viejo is LGBTQ+ friendly. Despite its small size, Casco Viejo plays a central role in the city’s culture and history, making it a must-visit for anyone exploring Panama.

With its beautiful plazas, cathedrals, and museums, Casco Viejo is decidedly very touristy — but not, as far as we were concerned, in a negative way.

Gift/souvenir shops were plentiful and Donnie now has a genuine Panama hat! Krista has a new apron, hot mitt, keychain, sarong, necklace, refrigerator magnets, and gifts that we have no idea how to send back to the States! 🤣

Dog Friendly

The plazas, as well as the restaurants, cafes, coffee shops, outdoor dining areas, and even the laundromats were dog-friendly! There’s no ADA in Panama; even seeing eye dogs are treated as “mascotas” (pets) but our babies were not only welcomed - they were celebrated!

Casco Viejo is surrounded on three sides by water. On arrival, we were greeted by this beautiful bird…

Playa Casco Viejo

We didn’t find it until we met a very nice, helpful expat resident named JR, but at the end of the next street over from our inn was a small beach — where TinkerBelle and LoloLu had a wonderful time swimming and (mostly) bounding (the water is quite shallow) around. It’s not exactly picturesque; in fact, there’s a lot of garbage (that collects where the beach meets the buildings of Casco Viejo at high tide). As a result, poor TinkerBelle got a urinary tract infection afterward — but they had a great time and neither of them got eaten by alligators 😱 so it was a good day!

The Food

We had an absolutely exquisite meal at CascoMar - from the fresh-baked bread to the incredible sangria (best we've ever had by a wide margin!) to the amazing fish entrees (I had tuna, Krista had seabass) - all the way to the excellent dessert! We would have eaten there every night if our budget allowed. We also had very good sushi, pasta, pizza, and Lebanese food while we were there. And while we did find some great coffee, everywhere we tried to get pastries disappointed.

Our Lodging

The AmazINN Places Boutique Casa Arias (see our YouTube video for more) did not disappoint. It was comfortable, cozy, and quiet; it oozed charm and we enjoyed our time there.

Lots of wonderful rest and relaxation was had here…

The biggest problem with our lodging was that it had no parking — and parking in Casco Viejo can be difficult to find. Once we managed to get a good parking spot that was close to our inn, we were loathe to move the car so we walked everywhere - to get coffee in the morning, to go eat/pickup takeout, to go to the grocery store to get ice for our cooler (the mini fridge in the room was really small), to go do some laundry, and of course to walk the dogs. I did quite a bit more walking than Krista, and as a result I ended up with a big, nasty blister on my right big toe. Due to my neuropathy, I didn’t feel it until it was pretty bad. Fortunately there’s a really good medical clinic at our next place in Coronado…

General Conclusions - AmazINN Casa Arias

Things We Liked

• Beautiful decor throughout 
• Interior ‘secret garden’ patios/balconies that look down onto the pool
• Lovely rooftop terrace with very nice views
• Shared kitchen area was well-equipped 
• Mini-fridge in the room
• Nice shower with hot water!
• Easy check-in/check-out
• Very reasonably priced 

Things That Could Have Been Better

• Reserved parking spots
• For all our luggage, an elevator would have been really nice
• Where the TV is mounted, one person (watching from the bed) has a bed post blocking the middle of the screen.
• Swimming pool was very shallow (mid-thigh) and the water was cold 🥶 

General Conclusions - Casco Viejo

It’s a beautiful place and I’m really glad to have spent some time there. I think it’s probably the very best part of Panama City and I’d recommend it to anyone who’s visiting Panama. For anyone who, like us, is thinking of coming to Panama to live, I’d suggest you allow Panama City to put its best foot forward by making Casco Viejo your first stay. But it's not the spot for us. Condo/apartment living isn't a good fit for the dogs; we're looking for a single-family home with a swimming pool and a nice beach nearby. Casco Viejo just isn't the place for that kind of a property.

We weren’t thrilled with it from the start — it was very dark inside (even on a bright day), the pool was dirty, all the furniture was uncomfortable and/or broken, and the ‘kitchen” had no sink! — but this morning, tree trimmers showed up early and took things to a whole new level of awful.

The sound of chainsaws would have sucked more than enough — but these guys were dropping huge tree limbs directly on our roof  with a huge CRASH! that sounded like a bomb had gone off!!

Poor TinkerBelle, in her (not quite) 2 years on the planet, the closest experience she had ever had to this was really loud thunderclaps. But huge tree limbs falling on your roof, while not quite as loud, is way more percussive. She was so freaked out.

And that wasn’t even the worst part.

As I was trying to get all of our stuff taken out and loaded into the car, I kept coming out to find big tree limbs on the sidewalk. (Along with tools and rope and debris.) So I’d have to wait for them to clear the sidewalk. (Meanwhile the clock was ticking and checkout time was getting closer and closer.)

Eventually, I got everything loaded and away we went… until I realized that I didn’t know how to get to our new place and my phone wasn’t working. (No service/data.)

One of the first-world luxuries that we take for granted is “611” which connects us to our cellular service provider — even when our service has been mysteriously suspended — so we can get the problem taken care of. If Panama has such a number/service, I don’t know what it is. So it was off to the mall to talk to Mas Movíl and figure out why our service had been disconnected — again. (Turns out they had tried to charge my card — the one that was cancelled due to fraudulent charges.)

Happily, this sad story ends well. Our new place is wonderful! Five days will go by much too quickly in Casco Viejo. But more on that in another post — and YouTube video!

we’re having trouble finding places that are in our price range (which we’ve already increased twice) and meet our criteria. (Interestingly enough, Coronado Villa Victoria was instrumental in helping us define those criteria.)

One reason for this is the “high season”. That’s November through March when snowbirds from the U.S., Canada, and Europe come to Panama to escape the cold weather back home. Demand goes high, supply goes low, prices go up.

Another reason is “los Carnavales” - a Panamanian holiday that’s one big party for the first several days of March. Rental prices go through the roof, highways become parking lots, and certain areas become wall-to-wall people.

While we did try to find someplace different to spend March, places that meet our criteria tend to be long-term rentals and, for obvious reasons, we’re not really ready to tie ourselves down to any one particular area yet. (And when we are ready, we’re going to want to just buy an house; not rent one.) Ultimately, our former hosts made us a nice offer and we accepted. Not only did we enjoy our time there immensely, but Coronado checks most of our boxes and we want to look at houses (to purchase) there before moving on to other areas.

We’re really looking forward to our stay in Casco Viejo. We spent a half day there previously and it’s a really cool area with a great vibe. Lots to see and do with several really good coffee shops! (Up until that point, I hadn’t had a decent cup of coffee since arriving in Panama.) It’s a little touristy but that’s OK; it should be very interesting. Stay tuned for some great pics…

I can’t begin to tell you how stressful this moving day was. Ultimately, we ended up in the common area with a ton of stuff hastily thrown into reusable shopping bags and faced with this conundrum: If we can’t transport ourselves, our dogs, and all our stuff in a single trip, how do we keep the stuff we’re leaving behind from disappearing before I can get back there to get it?!

What we needed was a luggage rack. (There were additional problems inherent in that solution but those were problems for another day.) So I left Krista with the dogs and all our stuff and off I went to buy a luggage rack.

But first we needed crossbars (which attach to the roof rails and give the luggage rack something to attach to).

At the first place I went, they looked at the car and told me that universal crossbars won’t work with the roof rails on a 2016 Acura MDX. It requires crossbars made specifically for our car and the only manufacturer$ that $ell them are Thule and Yakima. And they $ell for almo$t $500!!! I tried another shop and they gave me the same story. It didn’t sit right with me, though. I decided to go back and do a little more research.

I found YouTube videos that talked about OEM crossbars. One of them even gave a part number. A Google search on that part number turned up several listings — all in the U.S. — starting at $65 (with free shipping - but not to Panama).

Armed with a cost-effective solution that wasn’t going to help us today, it was back to the drawing board. Our next home wasn’t far away, so we decided that Krista would ride in the back seat with the dogs and I’d fill the passenger seat and footwell with all those reusable shopping bags full of food, kitchen stuff, laundry stuff, and misc/other stuff.

It wasn’t a lot of fun but it worked. Until next time.