Insight Guides Philippines (Travel Guide with Free eBook)

Insight Guides

• Publisher: Insight Guides
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781786718563
• Edition: 13
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Travel

Insight Guide Philippines is a comprehensive, full-colour travel guide that provides an essential introduction to this little-known Asian country. The Philippines is a destination of thousands of islands fringed by idyllic tropical beaches, plus stunning mountain scenery, colonial architecture and lively festivals.
The Insight Guide will assist you in finding your ideal itinerary through what can be a daunting list of options, with the inspirational Best Of section setting out the principal places to visit in the Philippines. In-depth information on the country's history and culture is provided in a series of lively pages, while chapters on contemporary culture, food, festivals and architecture paint a vivid portrait of life in the Philippines today.
The Places chapters cover all the sights worth seeing - from the amazing landscapes of northern Luzon to the beaches of the Visayas and the jungles of Palawan.
At the back of the book, the Travel Tips section contains all the practical information you'll need to make the most of your trip.
Insight Guides has over 40 years' experience of publishing high-quality, visual travel guides. We produce around 400 full-colour print guide books and maps as well as picture-packed eBooks to meet different travellers' needs. Insight Guides' unique combination of beautiful travel photography and focus on history and culture together create a unique visual reference and planning tool to inspire your next adventure.

Manila

Amid the hurly-burly of modern Manila, with its parks, museums, sky-high business districts, and vibrant nightlife, are reminders of the Philippine past in its Spanish architecture and Chinese enclaves.

Main Attractions

Intramuros walled city

Rizal Park Lights & Sounds Show

Museum District

Malate nightlife area

Mall of Asia

Makati

Divisoria Market

The Philippine capital, named after the white flowering nilad plant that once grew along the Pasig River where the city of 12.8 million people was founded, has the fixings of an international metropolis: bright green landscaped parks, history museums, nightlife, and business suburbs. But these attractions that show the contrasting influence of colonizers, visitors, and multinational companies can change in a blink of the eye to hallmarks of the nation’s rampant poverty: dirty beggars, naked children living on curbs, and crumbling cement walls that shade groups of drug-crazed young men staring at passers-by under the watch of heavily armed guards in the doorways of common businesses.

As travelers are usually left alone by all but beggars and hawkers, they can freely use taxis and jeepneys to ply the main drags from history-rich Rizal Park south to the walled city Intramuros, a bayside aquarium, Malate’s erotic nightlife district, and one of Asia’s largest shopping malls. Most museums and monuments are found in the safe zone. Hardcore bargain shoppers will find whatever they ask for at the Divisoria bargain basement shopping area north of the Pasig River.

Tip

Manila taxi drivers usually speak English well enough to give passengers tips on where to go around town. If they’re not angry about traffic, many are happy to chit-chat.

View from Intramuros.

Chris Stowers/Apa Publications

Foreign influences

Manila has always been action-packed, if not always so peaceful. In 1571, Spanish conquistador Miguel Lopez de Legazpi reached the city founded 1,000 years earlier as a trading post. When increased maritime trade saw an influx of people and ideas from around the globe, the liberal attitudes of English and American traders, among others, helped raise the city onto a cosmopolitan plane.

Revolutionary rumblings came to a head in Manila in the 19th century, when Jose Rizal defined Filipino-Spanish relations in an 1887 novel. Taking Rizal’s cue in 1892, Andres Bonifacio founded the Katipunan, a secret society promoting complete independence from Spain. Four years later, he led the first armed insurrection. After two years of guerrilla war against the Spanish, the revolutionaries found themselves beaten with the capture of their capital by the United States, which was at war with Spain. From 1898 to 1946, the people of the islands lived under another period of colonial, albeit benevolent, rule under the victorious US government. The Americans left an education system, democratic institutions, infrastructure technology, and Western mores.

Except for a few monuments and buildings, Manila was practically levelled during World War II as the Japanese sought a foothold. Young Filipino men allied themselves with the Americans against the Japanese, and Washington repaid the gesture by granting the Philippines independence in 1946.

Divisoria flea market.

Chris Stowers/Apa Publications

Intramuros

Though Intramuros is a far cry from the bustling Spanish city it once was, it has come a long way from the ravages of wartime. Formerly a jumble of broken buildings, portions of the old city have been renovated, including the Ayuntamiento (Municipal Hall), once the grandest structure here. Today travelers will find fully restored Spanish buildings hopping with cafés, bars, handicraft stores, and at least one boutique hotel. Walls aside, traffic of all types buzzes in and out of Intramuros, and there is no centralized admission.

Although Intramuros was laid out as a pentagon, its uneven sides more approximate a triangle. The old western wall fronted the sea before reclamation began a century ago, but is now flanked by Bonifacio Drive, which runs south to Roxas Boulevard. The perimeter of Intramuros measures nearly 4.5km (3 miles). Inside, following Legazpi’s blueprint for the capital, succeeding Spanish governors built 18 churches, chapels, convents, schools, a hospital, printing press, university (in as early as 1611), palaces for the governor-general and the archbishop, soldiers’ barracks, and houses for the assorted elite.

Fort Santiago A [map](Mon–Sat 8am–6pm) anchors this old walled city in the core of Manila, drawing visitors throughout the day for the wellspring of history lessons running from Spanish colonization through World War II. A stroll around the lavishly landscaped fort permits climbs onto the old wall, leads to a view of the grayish Pasig River, and allows a glimpse into a stone chamber where the Japanese jailed hundreds of Allied soldiers until they starved to death.

Cannons on the Intramuros city walls.

Chris Stowers/Apa Publications

Within Fort Santiago is the Rizal Museum (Tue–Sat 8am–noon, 1–6pm; free with fort entrance), housing memorabilia of Philippine national hero Dr Jose Rizal, credited with fomenting the overthrow of Spanish rule. Nearby is Rizal’s cell, where he wrote his last lines of poetry to the Filipino people.

Outside the fort area but still in the walled city, cross over to Manila Cathedral B [map], an imposing Romanesque structure constructed of adobe. Like most Catholic churches, it’s open to all, for free. A plaque on its facade reveals a relentless history, beginning in 1571, of reconstruction after the repeated ravages of fire, typhoon, earthquake, and war. Statues by Italian artists grace the facade. Fronting the cathedral is Plaza Roma, so-called since 1961 when Rome renamed one of its squares Piazza Manila, to commemorate the elevation of the first Filipino cardinal, Rufino J. Santos.

Part of a restoration plan for Intramuros is to replicate eight houses to illustrate different styles and periods through which local architecture has evolved. Some are already open to the public, including Casa Manila C [map](Tue–Sun 9am–6pm) in the extensive Plaza San Luis. This restored Spanish merchant’s house from the late 1800s features beautiful hardwoods throughout, plus capiz shell sliding windows. A hotel, restaurant, two cafés, and several gift shops operate in Plaza San Luis, which has space to expand on that repertoire. On General Luna Street is the three-story El Amanecer Complex, a reproduction of a 19th-century town home that now houses Silahis Center (tel: [phone]; daily 10am–7pm), a destination for handicrafts shopping.

Fact

Wealthy Spanish merchants who lived in houses like Casa Manila had all the modern conveniences of 1...