Melissa’s Soapbox

Panama City Skyline

Panama City Skyline from the Balboa Monument
Panama City was one of the highlights of our whole trip to Central America. It’s very cosmopolitan with its bustling downtown, diverse neighborhoods, and amazing food. We stayed at the Radisson Decapolis which is a really upscale high rise right downtown. Beyond urban festivities of martini bars and the casino (promptly cleared out by Andy’s blackjack skills), Panama City has tons of attractions and activities.

The skyline picture to the left was taken from the Balboa monument. The two skyline pictures immediately below were taken from the Amador Causeway which is an area constructed by rock that was removed to make the Panama Canal. It took 18 million yards of solid rock extracted from the famous Culebra or Gaillard Cut of the Panama Canal to build this Causeway connecting the Islands of Naos, Culebra, Perico, and Flamenco. The guidebooks call the Causeway a great place to cruise restaurants, bars, and unique shops; however, we found most places closed seemingly out of business with newspaper in the windows (other than a pretty lame duty-free store that had air conditioning so we still browsed for awhile). Even so, the Causeway is still a nice 1.5 mile walk right on the water with great views of downtown and the boat traffic lining up to enter the canal, and a great seafood restaurant called Mi Ranchito.

Panama City Skyline from the Amador Causeway