Panama, Casco Viejo
Casco Antiguo, Plaza Francia


Yesterday, with noisy and entretaining fireworks and a very nice party the French Embassy celebrated their Bastille Day at Plaza de Francia in Casco Viejo, also known as Las Bovedas. Since I know very little about French history, I checked out Wikipedia and found this:

"Quatorze Juillet" (Fourteenth of July in French) is Bastille Day, the French national holiday celebrating the Fête de la Fédération in 1790 during the French Revolution.

I know I should learn more about history, but I think in a way it was difficult to know exactly what the revolution was about or what exactly was being celebrated as the first stand in the party I got to was the L´Oreal stand with a makeup artist working his magic on a lady. The municipal band was playing sort of marches, maybe that was it. But maybe what they were celebrating, more than anything else, was the French spirit itself when they claimed Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité.

I thought giving you some pictures from last night celebrations, as well as a historic picture back in the days when Plaza Francia was only "Las Bovedas", the place where the Spanish government kept the jails. It is also the place where they would perform most official acts like executions, even later on when we became part of Colombia, we had one of our martirs called Victoriano Lorenzo shot in that very plaza. Plaza Francia has seen a lot. And I´m sure part of what inspired the "founding fathers" of our country to separate from Colombia back then form the republic was pretty much based on the spirit of the French Revolution.

So... Viva La France!