Baguio

Laid out in 1904 by the American architect who planned the city, and it lies in the town centre. Pedal boats go out on the man-made lake by the half hour, and at weekends they are all taken and you wait. A separate stretch is for hired bicycles.

The main street running down the hill, lined with old arcades and bakeries. On Sundays it closes to traffic and the whole road goes to stalls, so that day it is walking only. The slope makes it easier taken from the top down.

A deck looking into the Itogon mining valley, though with the mines closed it is ridgelines now. Stalls below rent Igorot dress for photographs and sell carvings, and one charges to pose with a St Bernard. Until the morning mist lifts nothing shows at all.

An American forces rest camp from 1903, turned over to lodges, a golf course and walking trails after handover. The pines hold it a few degrees below town, and the paths fork often, so take the map. One officers' house is kept as it was and opened up.

The painter Ben Cabrera built it on a hillside to hold his own work and his collection. A whole floor holds Ifugao bulul carvings, and the terraces and garden below the building are part of the route through. It is a twenty-minute drive from town.

Picking your own costs more than twice what the market charges. To pick at all you have to come between December and May, and mornings are when there is still fruit left on the rows. Stalls at the gate sell strawberry taho and jam.

The grounds are open to visitors. A cadet parade runs on Saturday mornings in term and that is the only time the field itself is entered, while the outdoor display of old tanks and aircraft stays open. An identity card is left at the gate.

Pink walls under twin bell towers, up 104 steps from Session Road. A panel notes that it served as a refuge during the war and came through the bombing, one of the few that did. The towers show from most of town, which makes them a bearing when lost.

Ifugao and Kalinga houses moved onto a hillside, and you can go inside and sit down. Each is entered by ladder with shoes off, and the roofs are low enough that you stoop indoors. Some of the huts are used as studios by painters.

The nuns' jam shop became the reason people come, and that is all most of them buy. On busy days the ube jam is rationed per person, and by afternoon the popular jars are gone. It sits beside Mines View Park, so the two get done together.

A long pond called the Pool of Pines stretches between the trees, and a riding ring below the steps hires out ponies. Owners walk alongside holding the reins, so children can ride. The Mansion, the president's summer residence, stands across the road.

Built in 1908 as the summer residence of the American governor-general, it now serves the Philippine president. Most people take photos at the iron gate, said to copy one at Buckingham Palace, and access closes while the president is in.

Trails wind through a pine wood east of downtown, with traditional Cordillera houses standing near the entrance. Session Road is within walking distance, and the pine shade holds the heat off even around noon.

A Marian grotto on Mirador Hill reached by a climb of 252 steps. In Holy Week some pilgrims go up on their knees. The top looks out over the city and its pine-covered ridges.

A sprawling market below Session Road, sorted into sections for vegetables, strawberries, coffee beans, ube jam and textiles. Highland produce arrives daily and costs less than in Manila. Cordillera weaving and bamboo baskets are cheap here too.

Each night one side of Harrison Road closes to traffic and fills with secondhand clothes and street food stalls. Mountain nights turn chilly, so plenty of travellers buy a jacket on the spot, and trading runs late.

Built atop Dominican Hill as a retreat house for friars and later run as a hotel, it fell to ruin after closing and is now a city-run heritage park. Refugees hid here in the war, and ghost stories cling to it. The front steps overlook the city.

Houses packed on a La Trinidad hillside had their roofs and walls painted so that, from afar, they form a huge sunflower mural. Its name takes the initial letters of Stone Kiln, Botiwtiw and Sadjap. The picture only works from the viewing deck across the road.