As you might guess, on this plaza you will find the French Embassy. If you know something about Panamanian history, you might guess that here you'd find some sort of monument to the French canal effort, and you wouldn't be guessing wrong.

This is Plaza Francia, the park and cultural center at a point where the colonial era Casco Viejo meets the waters of Panama Bay.

In colonial times, throughout the Colombian era and well into Panama's existence as an independent republic, however, this was not a park. This was generally not at all the sort of place to have fun. It was a military installation, a courthouse and a set of squalid dungeons. It was a place where political prisoners were executed. In an era before La Modelo was built, before basketbally was invented, it was a place where prisoners suffered the precursor of the Noriega-era torment of being handcuffed to the basketball goal, doing painful time chained to iron rings in the ceiling instead.

Now it's a park, with grass and trees in what was once a prison courtyard with a water tank in its midst, with the dungeons ("Las Bovedas") converted into an art gallery and a laid-back cafe where Panama's jazz scene is to be found every Friday night. The old courthouse now houses one of the National Institute of Culture's theaters and some of its offices. On one end there is a monument to Ferdinand de Lesseps and the valiant Frenchmen who tried to build a canal but were defeated by disease and financial disasters, and to the Cuban doctor who made the discovery that allowed a mainly West Indian work force to finish the job under the direction of American engineers.

Gentrification is the official plan for the Casco Viejo, the walled and moated neighborhood built for Spanish officials and the white Creole elite after Morgan the Pirate devastated the original Spanish settlement at Panama Viejo (which itself had been an indigenous town for 1,000 years before.) However, the process has not run its course, so in the park and along the esplanade behind it you will find lovers from crowded low-rent tenements and rich kids who live in expensively-restored old mansions, the country's middle-class intelligentsia checking out an art show or cultural event, little groups of American, European or Taiwanese tourists, artists and craftspeople selling their wares, street musicians and usually one or two snow cone vendors.

Panama makes a substantial effort to keep this place clean and safe. To get there from the major hotels --- but not from the Casco Viejo's inexpensive pensiones --- you will have to pass through areas where you don't want to walk around with a camera or displaying expensive jewelry. Unless you are staying in the area and willing and able to blend in with the scenery, get to and from this place by taxi. Even if you own or are renting a car, a cab is an inexpensive way to avoid the stress of navigating the Casco Viejo's narrow old streets.

Later on this particular afternoon, the commie radicals turned out in great numbers at this spot to honor the memory of a political prisoner who was executed long ago. The leftists sternly denounced the current government, but made no reference to running dogs of imperialism.

Now an art gallery and a chic cafe, Las Bovedas used to be a place of incarceration. Executions took place across the courtyard.

For twenty-five cents the raspao vendor will help you cool off and alleviate your thirst, Panamanian- style. You get a cone of shaved ice with your choice of fruit flavoring, condensed milk and sweetener. As it all melts you sip the liquid from the bottom of the cone through a little straw.

Also in this section:
Some of Colon's attractions
Plaza Francia

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