Saturday, November 26, 2011

Scenic Sunday Panama

I am linking up with Scenic Sunday

I have some more photos from our first full day of touring Panama City.  The tour included stops at the San Jose Church in Panama known for its famous gold alter.


The church is use to visitors stopping in to see the gold alter. We arrived in time for the mass and the singing of a pretty hymn. It is a lovely church located down a small cobblestone city street.









One of the few murals painted on the buildings near the church.



After leaving the church in Panama City we headed to the Miraflores Lock and the canal. We were able to stay long enough to see some ships make their way to the lock and to enjoy the exhibits at the visitor center.








For more wonderful photos from all over the world please visit Scenic Sunday.  Thanks to the host of Scenic Sunday and thanks for stopping by to see my post. Have a great weekend!

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Panama Caravan tour

I am linking up with Scenic Sunday

Hubby and I took a week long tour of Panama with Caravan tours. The Caravan tour included two nights in a Panama City hotel and tours around the city and then two nights at a rainforest hotel with more tours and two nights at the Pacific Ocean resort and the last night back at Panama City. I did arrange a bird guide for a day. I could not go to Panama without getting the chance to see some of the exotic and my cool Panama birds. But, this post will be on Panama City and some of the sights we saw during the two days we toured the city.


The morning part of the tour included the Panama Viejo visitor center museum displaying artifacts from 500-700 years before the Spanish arrival. The center included displays of clothing, furniture, pottery and a model of what old Panama City would have looked like.






Panama Viejo (old Panama) city founded by the Spanish in 1519 . A gateway for gold from the Inca Empire.

In 1671 famous Buccaneer Henry Morgan ransacked the city and burned it to the ground. It is interesting to see the old ruins with the new city skyscrapers in the background


The Panama Viejo is a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Vasco Balboa a Spanish conquistador and explorer. The first European explorer to see the Pacific in 1513. He claimed the Pacific Ocean and all its shores for Spain.

These photos and tours were done on the first full day of our Panama Caravan tour. Actually, the Viejo visitor center and ruins was just the morning part of the tour. I will do another post on the afternoon tour. We visited the San Jose Church with the gold alter and had lunch at the Miraflores Canal Locks.

I hope you enjoyed my tour of Panama Viejo center and ruins, to see more wonderful scenes from around the world check out Scenic Sunday. Thanks to

Grace Bay, Turks and Caicos, Nov 2023

 Grace Bay, Turks and Caicos, November 5-9th 2023 Hubby and I enjoyed a short getaway to Turks and Caicos. It is a British territory, close ...