This post is part of my North Luzon Road trip Series

Travel Time: La Union to Vigan 3.5-4 hours

Day two of our roadtrip was the drive from La Union up to Ilocos Sur, into Vigan. The drive up Luzon is relatively uneventful at this stage because you are driving through town after town. The landscape is cramped and there are not too many lovely view points to see. So sit back, nap, play games, daydream because really soon, your drive will become amazing. The further up north you go, the more amazing this country becomes.

Ilocos Sur sits between La Union and Ilocos Norte on the coast of Luzon. It is known mainly for its capital city – Vigan.

Here is what you need to know about Vigan  

And I am going to be honest here.

When you research Vigan, what you will find out is that it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and one of the few places left in the Philippines where the old structures have remained intact. It has Spanish Colonial Architecture and was a coastal trading post for the Chinese before the Spanish arrived and colonized the area. In 2015 Vigan was recognised as one of the New 7 Wonders Cities.

Here is what you need to remember

It is still a local town, which means when you arrive you drive along normal busy, cramped and messy streets. The ‘special’ bit is one street called ‘Heritage Village, Calle Crisologo’. This street is maybe five hundred meters long, cobblestoned with lovely old Spanish style buildings. Sounds great. Thing is, it is totally abused for tourism, therefore these gorgeous buildings now house souvenir shops that spill out onto the streets during business hours. A few restaurants are there and at dusk set up tables in the streets so you can sit and enjoy the view. The crowds of people become so thick by late afternoon you can barely see the cobblestones you walk on. Horses with kalesa’s trot up and down carrying visitors busy getting selfies.

Vigan is not a place you would make your end destination. There are a few other buildings in the area you can check out should you wish to.

But here is what we did to make our time in Vigan memorable

We stayed onsite at the Cordillera Inn. This is one of the old buildings and opens onto Heritage Village, they have a tourist map you can follow to visit local sites if you would like to and my goodness the beds are so comfortable. The afternoon we arrived we did a walk around the street, looked at a few shops and took a ride on a kalesa which the children loved. I don’t know that the horse was totally thrilled with the weight of Amazonian Australians, however the poor soul made it around the loop. I was amused that there is designated parking for the horses in various locations.

We had dinner and went to bed pretty early as we were all tired. We fell asleep to the sound of trotting hooves on the road outside which was a lovely soundtrack.

Now for the Magic

At around 1am I woke up, threw on some clothes, grabbed the camera and went outside and this is where the Vigan Magic is. The streets were empty except for the few street cats prowling around, and a couple of ginormous cockroaches that looked like they belonged in outer space on a planet far far away…the streets were dimly lit with warm yellow street lights, and it felt as though the buildings had sighed with relief that they could now be left to be. It was beautiful. Just beautiful. I quietly wandered up and down, taking photo after photo of these dim, shiny, gorgeous buildings that whispered their stories as I passed them by, and I just wished this place was shown a little more respect, it is after all, one of our world’s wonders.

By the time we woke and checked out the following morning, the crowds were already reappearing. We made a hasty exit because we had something super exciting to get to. We were going to find Badoc Island.

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