Vigan

Vigan's main street, cobbled and flanked by old shophouses with brick ground floors and timber upper storeys. Cars are kept out and only kalesa horse carts pass; tour groups jam it by day, so the quiet hours are early morning or at night under the lamps.

Earthquake Baroque, its walls built thick to ride out tremors, with the bell tower set apart so it would not crush the nave if it fell. It sits wedged between Plaza Salcedo and Plaza Burgos, so you pass inside while crossing from one square to the other.

The belfry of the church in Bantay, right next to Vigan, which in Spanish times doubled as a lookout for pirates coming off the sea. Stairs lead to a view over Vigan's rooftops and the rice fields, and many come up at sunset with cameras.

Every night the pool closing off the square puts on water jets and coloured light choreographed to music. After sundown people claim places on the stepped rim of the pool, and the wind carries spray over the front row.

The family house of the wife of Elpidio Quirino, the 6th president, showing the bedroom and furniture he used on his stays. It is a few blocks from Calle Crisologo on Quirino Boulevard, a quick hop by horse cart.

In a workshop lane on Vigan's southern edge a carabao still treads the clay and potters throw the big jars called burnay on the wheel. Some workshops will let a visitor try the wheel, and small jars can be bought and carried off.

A zoo and park created by Chavit Singson, a politician and former governor, where entry costs nothing. Tigers, ostriches and life-size dinosaur models share one hillside, and many visitors are families with children.

A garden and plant nursery tucked away in Bulala, outside the centre, where stalls of potted plants and seedlings line shaded paths. The restaurant at the back serves empanada and bagnet, which settles lunch.

Birthplace of Father Jose Burgos, executed in 1872, now a provincial museum. Esteban Villanueva's painted series on the 1807 Basi Revolt hangs here, beside household tools of the Ilocano and the highland peoples.

One of the Philippine Baroque churches listed together by UNESCO, perched on a hilltop and entered by climbing a long flight of stone steps. Its bell tower stands apart on the slope. The drive south from Vigan takes about an hour.

The house of the Crisologos, a leading political family of Vigan, opened as a museum. Their furniture, clothes and photographs fill each room, and one display tells of congressman Floro Crisologo, shot dead at Mass in 1970.

An 18th-century archbishop's palace beside Vigan Cathedral that Aguinaldo briefly used as a headquarters during the revolution. A museum inside gathers religious images, church silver and portraits of past archbishops.

The square south of Vigan Cathedral, where in the evening stalls set up to fry empanadas and okoy to order. It is named after Jose Burgos, the Vigan-born priest executed in 1872.

A World Heritage church in Ilocos Norte braced against earthquakes by twenty-four massive buttresses along its sides. It is built of coral stone and brick, with a separate bell tower. Allow two to three hours on the road north from Vigan; it fills a day.

A waterfall in Santa Maria, Ilocos Sur, regarded as the biggest anywhere in Ilocos. Legend calls a hollow in the rock the footprint of the giant Angalo. Most combine it with Santa Maria Church.