Continuing with the traveling firsts...

Prior to this trip, the northernmost part of the country I have set foot on was the town of Sta. Maria in Ilocos Sur, when I tagged along my late Aunt Dada and family as they talk to friends asking them to be the ninong/ninang for cousin Anna's wedding. In January 2006, I was able to see an album posted by a former college classmate in Multiply, featuring her trip to Vigan City. It sparked my willingness to see the place, too, and summer that year, my siblings and I planned to do a Summer Trip, which our parents happily supported.

All of us stayed at our house in La Union and after visiting Baguio for one full day, we set up to visit Vigan City. Armed with a map of the city (which brother took from his Philippine atlas), my umbrella, some bottled water, and our own set of legs and feet, we roamed to some of Vigan's spots.




The Belfry. The first landmark nearest to Vigan is the St. Augustine Church. People often mistake this as part of Vigan (since the City is just walking distance away), but the church is located in the town of Bantay. The Bantay belfry can be opened to public (it gives a panoramic view of the place while at the top), but the tourism office at that time was located near Cafe Leona in Vigan, so we didn't decide to go up anymore. Nowadays, there is a station near the church that guides guests.

From here we walked a distance to the city and checking out the landmarks in the map, we went to it one by one.


Padre Burgos House. Home of Padre Burgos (one of the GomBurZa martyrs), this is also the National Museum of Vigan. It houses different memorabilia of the Burgos family.

Salcedo Park. Where we ate lunch. There were some carinderia around the park, and because we wanted to eat something different from Jollibee and McDo, we just went ahead and ate homestyle cooking. The building at the back is the Vigan Cathedral.


Calesa Ride. I forgot where we were headed in this one, but we just came out of the Crisologo Museum and decided to take the calesa to our next destination - just so we could have a picture, too. :)


Calle Crisologo. My favorite spot in Vigan City. I could literally sit here for hours and just watch the people pass by without feeling bored.

We didn't have much pictures that time because we were still using the film camera and we have to plan all the shots, or else we might not be able to have all the film rolls developed and printed. We left Vigan City around 4:30pm, and although we practically had 8 hours of stay in the city, it was already enough to make me fall in love with the place. Since this trip, I have been here countless of times - I even visited this place 5 or 6 times in 2009. Vigan City is definitely my favorite among all the places I have visited, and I just don't get tired seeing it. Although I have only visited the place just once this year, I do plan to get back (probably early November) to take more pictures.

*** Jenn ***