Travel + Leisure Southeast Asia — October 2017

wheel and continue north. The highlight of the day’s
drive is a view of 456-meter Old Quirino Bridge, a steel
span over Lagben River and the Vigan Gap, a geologic
fault between two tectonic plates that extends nine
kilometers and cuts through three mountain ridges. It’s
a man-made achievement of engineering that brazenly
conquers and complements a natural wonder. If you
feel like crossing the gap more daringly, follow signs to
the Ilocos Sur Adventure Zone, where you can sling
yourself across via a 400-meter zipline.
Cruising slowly into Vigan—an historic townscape
with no equal in Southeast Asia—in this headturner
feels like swaggering. Established as a Spanish colonial
outpost in the 16th century, the town preserves the
original 25-street grid lined with 233 massive two-story
buildings, most dating to the mid-18th to late-19th
centuries. Steeply pitched roofs reference traditional
Chinese architecture; latticed windows of pearlescent
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After checking into the Hotel Luna, built in 1882 by
Spanish governor Don Jose Florentino, I take a tour of
the cobblestoned streets in a karesa, the traditional

horse-and-buggy. It’s hard not to feel reverent at St.

Paul’s Cathedral, a buttressed Earthquake Baroque

church built in 1790, or at a burnay pottery workshop,

where an artisan molds Ilocos clay into graceful jars on

a footpowered wheel. Fired in hemispherical kilns, the

jars are valued for their rich, unglazed patina.

In Vigan, the best for dinner is venerable Café

Leona, in a thick-walled casona on Calle Crisologo and

named for famous Ilocana poet, satirist and playwright,

Leona Florentino. The kitchen delivers a sophisticated

turn on Filipino recipes, including bagnet (deep-fried

pork belly), pinakbetYHJHWDEOHVLQIHUPHQWHG¿VK

relish), and longganisa (Ilocano-style sausage).

On the long journey back to Manila, I change drive

modes from Comfort to Sport, allowing the car to hug

the highway a little more tightly, giving me a playful

hint of what more it can do. Even during an afternoon

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decide to kick things up a gear and drop into manual

transmission. Challenge mastered! I whip through the

10 gears just like a Formula One driver, emerging from

the past in this car of the future.

Vigan’s charming streets. CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT:

Burnay jars in Ilocos Sur; Vigan’s Bantay Belfry;

San Juan Beach; St. Paul’s Cathedral in Vigan.

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