Cebu City Heritage Tour Day 1

Have you ever felt how it is to be on a heritage tour even on your own place? Last August 21 and 31, 2009, Cebu Bloggers Society went on a heritage tour of Cebu City.

Cebu City is the oldest city in the Philippines and is hailed as the Queen City of the South. The city itself, though not very large in size, holds a lot of historical memories that dated even to the time of the Spaniards. I still remember our international project in high school entitled Calles de Cebu which means Streets of Cebu. It won gold but unfortunately, the website isn’t up anymore. Being on that project made me realize that Cebu is not only Cebu because of the Lapu-lapu-Magellan tandem but because of the many historical figures and events that graced this long living community.

This heritage tour, organized by Atty. Ouano includes a video footage of us, the bloggers, giving out lines (e.g. We will impress this message upon our political leaders that we now have this individual and collective political will. We implore our leaders to take heed) that relate to protecting nature and society as a whole. We call this project (or maybe advocacy?) Expression of Individual and Collective Will.

AUGUST 21, 2009

This being my birthday, I had a great start with the heritage tour. We met at a corner in the grounds of the Basilica del Santo Nino and that started off our whole day tour. Here are our “pit stops”:

1. Magellan’s Cross – Magellan will always be known to the Cebuanos as the first conqueror. And loser.

2. Cebu City Hall – of course, this is Cebu City’s city hall. I mistook Capitol before as the city hall though.

3. Basilica Minore del Santo Nino – the basilica’s facade always amazes me. It really looks historical. A must see for devotees and vacationers.

4. Metro Colon – oldest street in the Philippines. Add shabby and neglected? I just hope the government would preserve Colon Street’s historical presence. Maybe someday it’d just become a slum market. Hope not.

5. Cebu Provincial Capitol – the Malacanang of the South, seat of Queen Governor Gwen Garcia. I’ve been only once inside. This is where I delivered my line Toward this goal, we will exercise our sovereign authority as a people to be expressed in the form of electoral vote.

6. Fuente Osmena Circle – this landmark dated long ago and is still here up to now. It resembles a park and is nested upon by couples every night.

7. Asiatown I.T. Park – I consider it Cebu’s miniature Makati City. This is where a group of IT companies, contact centers and BPOs gather. This is also a good place to chill.

8. The Terraces – The Terraces is a new spot in Ayala Cebu replacing the then-famous lagoon area (where I used to… never mind). The Terraces is good for an excellent dining experience, or much better, restaurant hopping.

The heritage tour ended in Ayala. Since we haven’t covered a lot of spots, we decided to do a second day of the tour the following week.

The heritage tour was something new to me. Though I’ve been to all these places, it’s different when you go there with a purpose in mind. The second day of the heritage tour will be on another post.

Read about my birthday being in parallel with the heritage tour on How I celebrated my 20th birthday.

Thanks to Atty. Ouano for organizing this event and for the pictures too. And also to Mikyu.

Keep going CBS! Cebu City Heritage Tour Day 2, up next.

Other posts you might also like

• Citta Di Mare Soon To Rise In Cebu
• Running For Dear Life
• Passionata: A Cultural Heritage Celebration

About Bryan Karl

I am a software developer, a photography-enthusiast and a travel junkie.

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