Plaza Santa Ana

The lively Plaza Santa Ana has an utterly different ambiance than the quiet elegance of other Casco Viejo plazas. Here, the park is kept busy with the people sitting and relaxing, chatting, passing through, and playing checkers. Rather than restored colonial buildings, the streets around the Plaza are lined with cheap eateries, pastry shops, tiendas, and produce vendors during daylight hours, and yellow shoeshine booths stand in a strip along the park's edge. The activity of this place has seen a number of mutations; it was originally the center of the area outside the city walls, known as the arrabal, and was alternately used to host the market or bullfights throughout the 19th century. The current park, filled with trees and shaded paths with benches dotting the edges, is thanks to an 1890s remodel.