The original downtown grid, north of the Río Cuale and centred on the Plaza de Armas and the Church of Guadalupe. The streets here are steeper and narrower than in Zona Romántica, climbing the hillside in tight cobblestone switchbacks toward the Mirador de la Cruz. The town hall, the public market, and most of the colonial-era civic buildings sit within a few blocks of the plaza.
The northern end of the Malecón runs along Centro's seafront, with the cathedral bells audible from the boardwalk. Sunday evenings the plaza fills with families for the municipal band concerts — an unchanged tradition since the 1940s.