Church
Metropolitan Cathedral Basilica of Santa Maria the Ancient
7-53, Av. B, Panamá, Provincia de Panamá
Twin white towers studded with mother-of-pearl from the Pearl Islands, built over a century from reused ruins.
This guide to the Metropolitan Cathedral Basilica in Panama City opens in 1549 with Felipillo, an enslaved diver in the Pearl Islands, who organized indigenous and African divers into a revolt and led them to a hidden settlement on the mainland. It follows the Spanish captain who tracked the palenque down two years later, and the trial that followed. Along the way it traces the stone and shell salvaged from a city Henry Morgan had already burned.
Audio guides are written and narrated by AI.