Four centuries of Spain inside a walled city, the world's oldest Chinatown, and a bay sunset that forgives the traffic
01 / 10
Intramuros
cultureThe Spanish walled city, four centuries of it, with a citadel at the river mouth where José Rizal spent his last night — his final footsteps cast in brass across the courtyard to the gate.
02 / 10
Ermita
cultureThree museums in neoclassical government buildings around Rizal Park — Fine Arts with Juan Luna's enormous Spoliarium, Anthropology with pre-colonial gold, and Natural History under a domed 'Tree of Life'.
03 / 10
Malate
leisureThe reason people forgive this city a great deal — a genuinely spectacular sunset over the bay, watched from a seawall promenade lined with palms and food carts.
04 / 10
Intramuros
cultureThe oldest stone church in the Philippines, finished in 1607 and the only building in Intramuros to survive the 1945 battle — a trompe-l'œil barrel vault overhead and a monastery museum around the cloister.
05 / 10
Ermita
leisureThe park where José Rizal was shot in 1896 and where independence was declared half a century later — his monument guarded around the clock, and a diorama of the execution behind it.
06 / 10
Binondo
shoppingFounded in 1594 for Catholic Chinese, which makes it the oldest Chinatown anywhere — a dense grid of noodle houses, herbalists and gold dealers, with a baroque church at the centre.
07 / 10
Intramuros
cultureA reconstructed 1850s Spanish colonial townhouse around a courtyard — capiz-shell windows, a formal sala and, notoriously, a two-seater toilet for conversation.
08 / 10
Intramuros
cultureDestroyed and rebuilt eight times since 1571 by fire, typhoon, earthquake and the 1945 bombardment — the present Romanesque version dates from 1958 and carries a Dutch pipe organ of 4,500 pipes.
09 / 10
Tagaytay
leisureTwo hours south to a ridge 600 metres up, looking down on a volcano inside a lake inside a volcano — cool air, bulalo soup, and the strangest geography in the Philippines.
10 / 10
Ermita
leisureAn oceanarium behind the Quirino Grandstand with a walk-through tunnel, a penguin house and a sea-lion show — built on reclaimed land at the edge of Manila Bay.