Cebu

What stands there is a shell. Tindalo wood was built around the original in 1834 to stop pilgrims chipping pieces off it, and the old cross is inside. The octagonal pavilion went up later than the basilica beside it, so the painted ceiling is recent work.

The country's oldest Catholic parish, founded in 1565. The Santo Nino figure in the glass case is held to be the christening gift Magellan handed over, and through Sinulog in the third week of January the masses begin before dawn and the doors stay packed.

A triangular fort finished in stone in 1738, its sides short enough that a circuit takes ten minutes. Inside there is a garden and one small display room and little else, but the walkway on top of the wall looks down on the container yards at the port.

The highest ground on Cebu island, 1,013 metres. The ridge breaks into jagged teeth and the summit takes two or three people at once; on a clear dawn the Bohol Strait lies east and Negros west. Ride up from Dalaguete and only fifteen minutes are on foot.

Limestone gives the water its jade colour. The first of the three tiers is the largest and takes the crowd, so twenty minutes further up the pools sit empty. Canyoneering parties start in the gorge above and finish by coming down to this point.

Word spread that the Marian image had wept, and a pilgrimage grew. Letters of recovery and abandoned crutches hang along the stair walls, and weekend queues run down the steps. Bare shoulders and shorts are turned back; a cloth is lent at the door.

No boat is needed. Five minutes of swimming out from Panagsama beach puts you beside a wall of thousands, and it sits shallow enough for a snorkel. The shoal stays put through the year, though the water clouds over in the afternoon.

A thirty-minute boat ride from Mactan, with flats that empty wide at low tide. Migrants working between Siberia and Australia rest here, which is what put it on the Ramsar list, but the birds only show if you match the tide. A dirt track leads out to the hide.

A businessman began this Roman-style building in 2012 for his late wife. It is not a place of worship: inside stands her statue and her collection rather than any saint, and parts remain unfinished. The hill site above Busay throws in a view over the city.

The Spanish laid it out in 1565, which is why it gets called the country's oldest street. What lines it now is wholesale stalls and secondhand clothes, with a few old cinema buildings under new signs. Locals raise the pickpockets before anyone asks.

A 19th-century house in the Parian district where Juan Gorordo, Cebu's first Filipino bishop, grew up. Coral stone below and timber above make it a textbook bahay na bato. The Yap-San Diego house stands a short stroll off, and most visit both.

A Chinese merchant built it toward the close of the 1600s, and few houses anywhere in the Philippines are older. Coral stone walls carry molave posts and a clay tile roof. Inside it is dim and crammed with antiques, and the narrow stair makes visitors duck.

A huge sculpture in Parian plaza where the artist Eduardo Castrillo packed Cebu's history into one mass. Lapu-Lapu's battle, the first baptism and the Santo Nino procession run in sequence around it. No fence surrounds it, so passers-by look at any hour.

Raised in 1972 by the Chinese community on a hilltop in the Beverly Hills subdivision. Between the red roofs and dragons the city and sea spread below, and worshippers cast wooden blocks to read their fortune. Most people ride a taxi up the steep lane.

A highland plot in Busay planted with rows of celosia and nicknamed Little Amsterdam, dotted with model windmills and photo frames. Typhoon Odette swept the beds away in 2021 before they were replanted. The road is steep, so many ride up on motorbike taxis.

The Cebu provincial museum, fitted into a provincial jail from the Spanish era. The former cells each hold one period, from colonial times through American rule to the Second World War. Thick coral stone walls keep the rooms cool even at midday.

Off Tan-awan in Oslob, at Cebu's far south, fishermen draw whale sharks in by feeding them, and critics keep saying it alters their migration. The trip from town eats three or four hours by road and viewing runs only in the morning, so people leave at dawn.

Up in the hills near the Oslob whale shark site, this waterfall breaks into fine threads down a mossy rock wall and falls like a curtain. The slope off the highway is steep, so most ride down by motorbike taxi, and the basin at its foot is shallow to wade.

A small island off Oslob that became the first marine sanctuary in the Philippines in 1974. The sandbar at its tip shifts shape and direction with tides and seasons. Plenty of visitors cross over by boat after the whale sharks and stay the afternoon.

A small island a boat ride from Maya port on Cebu's northernmost shore. At Monad Shoal offshore, thresher sharks rise to visit cleaner fish. They only come up early in the morning, so dive boats head out before sunrise.

A flat island across the water from Hagnaya port in northwest Cebu, known for the white sand beaches of Santa Fe and its dried fish. The church granted the island a dispensation to eat meat during Holy Week, and that week brings the biggest crowds.

A memorial park on the Mactan shore where Lapu-Lapu defeated Magellan in 1521. A statue of Lapu-Lapu stands near a marker for the spot where Magellan fell. Every 27 April the battle is re-enacted down on the beach.

Held on the third Sunday of January every year in honour of the Santo Nino, the Child Jesus image. Dance troupes parade through town with a step that goes two forward and one back. Downtown roads close that weekend and hotels fill months ahead.

A Spanish-era stone church in a coastal town in southeast Cebu, listed as a National Cultural Treasure. A watchtower was raised beside it against raiders from the sea. Its restored convent displays old burial finds dug up from the grounds.

The marine sanctuary nearly every island-hopping banca from Mactan stops at. The shallow coral spreads wide, and fish crowd in the moment people slip off the boat. Most day trips pair it with Nalusuan and Pandanon islands.