Text/Laura Shen
Photo: Review-Sun Lu, Production-Kiki
Cover: Aleksandar Todorovic/Shutterstock
The ancient city tour has been very popular recently, as far as Lijiang, Pingyao and Machu Picchu and Jerusalem, and tourists hope to experience the journey through time and space.
There are many ancient cities around China, but the closer you get, the less you understand them. For example, in the Philippines, although it takes only two hours to fly from South China, due to prejudice, Chinese people are afraid that it is either a Filipino maid or a typhoon, and it is a third world and cultural desert.
There are many ancient cities and buildings in the Philippines, which have not been impacted by tourism development. They are well-preserved and original. If you travel along Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao from north to south, it will become a little-known road map of ancient cities with small treasures.
These ancient cities were established by the Spanish in 16th century, which preserved a large number of Spanish-style ancient buildings and were declared as world cultural heritage by UNESCO. Under the tropical sunshine and island monsoon, they seemed to come to the Caribbean Islands.
Island-hopping and Ancient City Tour
From Wigan Ancient City in Irogo District in northern Luzon Island, enter Malolos Ancient City in Central Luzon District, go south through Manila to Pyla Ancient City in Neihu Province, then jump into Silai Ancient City and iloilo in Visayas Island, and reach Zamboanga in Mindanao.
Compared with Kyoto, Chiang Mai, Malacca and Hoi An, the tourism promotion in the Philippines is weak, and the ancient cities with a long history are little known. However, it is precisely because of its little fame and small number of tourists that the ancient city is more original.
road map of the ancient city jumping off the island
Cartography: Kiki
Vigan is the most famous ancient city in the Philippines, located in Ilocos Region in the north of Luzon Island. It is the city with the most complete preservation of Spanish architecture and culture in Asia and the Philippines, and was selected as a world cultural heritage in 1999.
Wigan's earliest settlers were Minnan people in China, and Chinese people called it the beautiful coast, which was a trading port between China and the Philippines. Wigan's aesthetic style is deeply influenced by China, and the ancient houses of several Chinese-Irogo mixed-race families are one of the most attractive attractions here.
Calle Crisologo, the main street of the ancient city of Wigan
Architectural style with cultural elements of China and Europe
Photo: Akarat Phasura/Shutterstock
Photo: Joseph Oropel/ Shutterstock
Wigan was built by the Spanish in 1572. The urban structure uses the 18th century Spanish town design, with chessboard streets, squares and central parks in the center of the streets.
The street is cobblestone, full of tricycles and carriages. It feels like coming to Havana, Mexico, Malacca or Macau.
Salcedo Salcedo
and the checkerboard streets of the ancient city
Photo: Freedomkim/Shutterstock
Photo: Tatiana Nurieva/ Shutterstock
Street in the ancient city
Photo: Joseph Oropel/Shutterstock
Photo: Akarat Phasura/Shutterstock
The most beautiful place in the ancient city of the Philippines is the respect for ruins and broken. There is no attempt to repair the broken history, but to develop into a new aesthetics, which is a scarce quality in many tourist attractions.
The "earthquake baroque architecture" produced by combining the geographical features of frequent earthquakes and tsunamis in the Philippines is the representative of survivor aesthetics.
not far from Wigan, there is a Catholic church in Paoay, which was built in 1694. It is like a dinosaur lying on the ground, with a long tail and an all-stone structure, which has the grotesque architecture of Gaudi and the illusion of Angkor Wat and Machu Picchu.
It's like a magical wonder that fell into the earth from an alien. It was born in Luzon Island as early as the 17th century. It's really amazing. It survived two earthquakes and was listed as a world cultural heritage.
Paay Church in Pavai
Photo: Kim David/ Shutterstock
Entering the Central Luzon District and Manila Metropolitan Area to the south, you come to the ancient city settlement, where Spanish architecture and 19th century American architecture are preserved.
Malolos Historic Town Centre is the birthplace of the Philippines' first Republic, which coincided with the handover period when Spain ceded the Philippines to the United States. Therefore, there are mixed buildings of the United States and the West, as well as traces of the modern history of the Philippines at the end of 19th century, including the ancestral homes of famous families, such as the Xu Huange family, who was born by former President Aquino.
bara Soain church, ancient city of Mallory
Photo: Kim David/Shutterstock
Pila Historic Town is one of the few cities that have preserved the planning of Spanish colonial cities, and its structure is similar to Wigan.
Pila Church
Picture: Schubert Ciencia/Flickr
There is a Forbidden City-like Intramuros in the metropolis Manila, which is surrounded by old city walls and has been preserved to this day. Since 1571, it has been the ruling center of the Spanish Empire in East India, and the Baluarte de San Diego, which is located in it, is like a medieval maze with an ancient Roman flavor.
San Diego Garden
Photo: Thequeensescape.com
Luzon Island is the largest island and city in the Philippines, but the colonial history of the Philippines originated in Visayas, a central archipelago. This is where Magellan first discovered the Philippines. In 1521, Magellan landed in Cebu and died here. It was the earliest Spanish colony in the Philippines.
There is an ancient city of Silay City Negros Island in Visayas, which is known as "Paris of Negros". It is full of architectural monuments, artworks and cultural activities, and was once the gathering place of the western colonial bourgeois.
Negros Island is rich in sugar resources, so it is home to many nobles who made a fortune in sugar industry. The family of Gaston and Lacson, the sugar tycoons, left architectural relics here. The Ruins, built by Lacson family in 19, is another aesthetic representative of ruins in the Philippines, and it is known as the Taj Mahal in the Philippines.
This Italian-style building is an unfinished building with a history of 12 years. The unfinished building has become a masterpiece of broken aesthetics and is often photographed and punched by fashion bloggers.
Ruins
Figure: Joseph Oropel/ Shutterstock
Ilo Ilo, which is located on the other side of the ancient city of Silai, was founded in 1522. It is the second colonial city founded by Spain in the Philippine Islands after Cebu, and the last colonial city before Spanish colonists left Asia in 1898. It can be described as one of the Philippine cities with the longest colonial history in the west.
The Miagao Church, built in 1731, is also an earthquake baroque building, which survived the earthquake just like Pavai Church.
There are exquisite and complicated reliefs on the front of the church, and the towers and all-stone structures on both sides remind people of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Although they are far from each other in terms of age and belief, they have the beauty of crisscrossing time and space.
Mia High Church
Photo: Michael D Edwards
The last stop of the trip to the island in the ancient city of the Philippines returned to ancient history. The main body of the Philippines is in Luzon Island, the colonial history began in Visayas, and the ancient history was in Mindanao.
Mindanao is at the southernmost tip of the three islands in the Philippines. The ancient city of Zamboanga, named after Zheng He's name "Sambo", is the place where Zheng He stayed in the Western Ocean, just like Semarang in Indonesia. The local Sulu Sultan once visited Zhu Di, the Ming emperor.
Zamboanga is the seat of Sulu Sultanate, which was founded in 14th century, and has been changing hands between Spain and Sudan. Fort Pilar, built in 1635, is a Spanish fortification against Sulu Muslims, and now it is the Zamboanga National Museum.
Bila Fortress
Figure: Wikimedia Commons
The ancient house of Maestro
The main body of the ancient Philippine city is a unique building called Bahay na bato, which is the main content of the ancient city. It has survived for hundreds of years and has been passed down from generation to generation.
in the early 19s, Stone houses on the streets of Manila
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Today's stone houses in Cebu
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Stone houses are Spain, The buildings with mixed aesthetics in the Philippines and China are usually two low floors, one is Spanish-style gates, garages and corridors, and the other is bahay kubo. The shell windows, flower carvings and antiques in the rooms draw lessons from the aesthetics of southern Fujian in China.
The building material is stone. The stability of the stone can resist earthquakes and typhoons, and it can also adapt to rainy and humid climate. The indoor ventilation is cool, which is very suitable for the hydrological environment in the Philippines.
Stone houses are a mixture of western, Philippine and Chinese styles, and are also called the Mestizo in architecture.
Mestizo is a descendant of the Spanish who married the indigenous people in the colony. His male name is Mestizo and his female name is Mestiza.
Mestizo mixed-race is concentrated in Latin America, a western colony, and it is also very large in the Philippines. The Philippines, a former Western colony, is very close to Latin American culture. Although it is located in East Asia, it is closely related to the west coast of the Pacific Ocean.
the maitizo in the Philippines in 1846
picture: wikimedia commons
Justinian o Asuncion
the maitiza
picture: wikimedia c. Ommons
The stone houses in the Philippines are similar to the buildings in Ganyangnya, Singapore and Malaysia, and they are all mixed-race buildings.
The former is a mixture of Spanish, Filipino and China, while the latter is a mixture of Portuguese, Malay and China, also known as eclectic architecture or Chinese Baroque.
Similar appearance
Genyangnya building (left)
Philippine stone house (right)
Philippine stone house
Figure: pzAxe/ Shutterstock
The architecture of Gega Nyangnya
Figure: Interior design of Gega Mansion (left) and Stone House (right) in tripadvisor.com
. > the interior design of Chan Da House
Picture: ben bryant/Shutterstock
Interior design of stone house
Picture: Wikimedia Commons
The integration of Chinese in the Philippines is second only to Thailand, and 2% of the population is of Chinese descent. Chinese Americans have a very high economic and political status, and most of the classic stone houses are the ancestors of the Chinese Maitisso family.