Architecture sights in Philippines
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Banaue
Banaue sits at the foot of a truly mesmerising display. Its mud-walled rice terraces, North Luzon's most famous sight, have a pleasing, organic quality that differentiates them from the stone-walled terraces in most of the Cordillera. World Heritage-listed, they are impressive not only for their chiselled beauty but because they were created around 2000 years ago.
The rice terraces were built by the Ifugao. Along with being the most feared head-hunters in the Cordillera, they were skilled engineers who invented a sophisticated irrigation system of bamboo tubes and elaborate mud channels to bring water to the terraces.
The well-staffed Banaue Tourist Information Center loc…
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Basilica Minore del Santo Niño
This holiest of churches is a real survivor. Built in 1565 and burnt down three times, it was rebuilt in its present form in 1737. Perhaps it owes its incendiary past to the perennial bonfire of candles in its courtyard, stoked by an endless procession of pilgrims and other worshippers. The object of their veneration is a Flemish image of the infant Jesus, sequestered in a chapel to the left of the altar.
It dates back to Magellan's time and is said to be miraculous (which it probably had to be to survive all those fires). Don't forget to look up and admire the heavenly ceiling murals while you're here. Every year, the image is the centrepiece of Cebu's largest annual ev…
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Bahay Nakpil-Bautista
On a crowded side street just to the east of Plaza Miranda, you will find Bahay Nakpil-Bautista, where the widow of Andres Bonifacio, father of the Philippine Revolution, lived after his death. A historic landmark in itself, the house is used for occasional cultural exhibits.
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Ayuntamiento
To one side of the Plaza de Roma lie the forlorn ruins of the Ayuntamiento, once the grandest building in all of Intramuros.
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