El Escalón

- District 3, West San Salvador: Torre Futura, World Trade Center, WTCSS, Galerias

The West part is the safest and richest part of the city. In El Escalón you find many middle class neighbourhoods with tons of lowrise private residences, as well as some of San Salvador's best and largest shopping malls. The malls of San Salvador has a very good standard, and some of the best ones are situated here; Centro Comercial Galerias is perhaps the best mall I ever visited, great architecture with a mix of modern and postmodern and a neo-classic heritage building from 1950 inside, and I found everything I wanted there. Galerias is situated on 4 floors and features 133 stores on 115 000 m² fountains, waterfalls and glass elevators, as well as a train and a merry-go-round for children. The mall was actually built around the old heritage building, called La Casona, that is owned by a Palestinian family, and hosts a Starbucks and other cafés on 3 floors. From the food court on the upper floor, you will not only find almost all wellknown fastfood brands, there are also panoramic glass windows with great views of the city! The Galerias mall opened in 1995, and in 2006 an additional floor was built to accomodate a large branch of the Mexican cinema chain Cinépolis.

World Trade Center San Salvador (WTCSS), built in 2009, is a complex where you not only find office buildling but also an outdoor shopping mall, a plaza, a pound with fountains, restaurants with views over the city. El Salvador and Panama are the only countries in Central America that have a WTC, and many embassies have offices there. The landmark of the complex is Torre Futura. The 20-storey Torre Futura, designed by KMD Architects, is the 3rd tallest (92m) in El Salvador (4th tallest in Central America excluding Panama) and one of the most modern office buildings in the city. It is a "green and intelligent building", since it limits solar light and takes full input of natural light. The mall is called Plaza Futura. There is a walkway to the 4-star Crowne Plaza Hotel from the complex.

There are several Chinese restaurants in El Salvador, as well as Mexican restaurants, Italian restaurants etc. Many of them are situated in El Escalón.

El Escalon 01 - towards Torre Futura/WTC El Escalon 02 - Alisios Ciento Quince, 2nd tallest, from 2010 El Escalon 03 El Escalon 04 - Chinese restaurant El Escalon 05 El Escalon 06 El Escalon 07 Torre Futura, WTC 01 Torre Futura, WTC 02 Torre Futura, WTC 03 Torre Futura, WTC 04 Torre Futura, WTC 05 World Trade Center Torre Futura Torre Futura, WTC 08 Torre Futura, WTC 09 Torre Futura, WTC 10 Torre Futura, WTC 11 Torre Futura, WTC 12 Torre Futura, WTC 13 Torre Futura, WTC 14 Torre Futura, WTC 15 Crowne Plaza Hotel Centro Comercial Galerias 01 Centro Comercial Galerias 02 Centro Comercial Galerias 03 Centro Comercial Galerias 04 Centro Comercial Galerias 05 Centro Comercial Galerias 06 Centro Comercial Galerias 07 Centro Comercial Galerias 08 Centro Comercial Galerias 09 Centro Comercial Galerias 10 Centro Comercial Galerias 11 Centro Comercial Galerias 12 Centro Comercial Galerias 13 Centro Comercial Galerias 14 Centro Comercial Galerias 15 Views from Galerias 01 Views from Galerias 02 Views from Galerias 03 Views from Galerias 04 Views from Galerias 05 Views from Galerias 06 Views from Galerias 07 Views from Galerias 08 Views from Galerias 09 Views from Galerias 10 Views from Galerias 11 Views from Galerias 12 Views from Galerias 13Views from Galerias 14