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On the coast about 6km east of El Cangrejo stand the ruins of PANAMA VIEJO , the original colonial city founded by Pedrarias Davila in 1519 and abandoned in 1671. Many of its buildings were dismantled to provide stones for the construction of San Felipe and in recent decades much of the site has been built over as the modern city has continued to spread eastward, but despite this a surprising number of the original buildings still stand, testimony to the skill of the Spanish masons who built them, and a walk among the ruins will give you a good impression of the former splendour of the first European city on the Pacific Ocean. To get to Panama Viejo , either take a taxi or catch any bus marked Panama Viejo or Via Cincuentenario. If you're short on time and leaving Panama by air, you can see quite a lot of the ruins by asking your taxi-driver to take the slow route to the airport via Panama Viejo. The best place to start a visit is the museum (daily 9am-4pm; US$1.50), on Via Cincuentenario in the centre of the ruins, where a scale-model and audio-tape history in English or Spanish gives a good idea of what the city must have looked like. There is also a display of artefacts discovered during ongoing archeological excavations, including nails and rusty swords, pottery and astonishingly well-preserved Sevillan tiles, all well illustrated with reproductions of paintings by the Spanish artist Velasco showing these household items in use. The ruins are well marked with descriptions in English and Spanish and there are usually free maps available in the museum.
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