We slept with the drapes drawn wide open, offering a full view of the city’s main avenue—lamplight and car headlights reflecting off its rain-slicked streets. The Capitol building, seen from our window, quietly resting beneath a drizzling Iloilo sky. By the time I awoke, fully rested and ahead of my wife and kid, the scene had changed. Soft morning light filtered gently through Days Hotel’s translucent curtains; the rain had passed, and the city was beginning to wake. I dressed quickly, excited for a morning walk along the nearby River Esplanade—ready to be embraced once more by the City of Love.

DAYS HOTEL ILOILO

I stayed at Days Hotel Iloilo several years back during an Iloilo–Antique media tour that extended all the way to Guimaras and Boracay—days spent with a budding romance, a crazy whirlwind that now feels like a lifetime ago. Today, I return with the same person—now my wife—and our young son in tow. No longer traveling with a heavy backpack, we now carry two suitcases. Say hello to our new chapter of travelling.

➤ SEE: BORACAY TRAVEL GUIDE

With no budget for fancy restaurants, my culinary trips to Iloilo City usually consists of nothing more than carinderia fares, bowls of La Paz batchoy and the usual tusok-tusok streetfood. So I almost choked with surprise then that on my last outing to the city, I, together with other travel bloggers, was invited to try out the upper-class cuisine of Iloilo City at the Al Dente Ristorante Italiano.

According to Merriam-Webster’s, al dente is a dish that’s cooked just enough to retain a somewhat firm texture.

Alright alright, I know most 90s kids know what the word means from a TV commercial from yesteryears. The term originates from Italy and refers mostly to pasta dishes, so I’m thinking we must be having Italian tonight.

►NEAR HERE: GUIMARAS TRAVEL GUIDE

Along with my love for old churches is my relatively new-found passion for ancestral houses. I used to dismiss such houses, being more fascinated with European minimalism and American organic architecture. But once the travel bug hit me some years back, I started to really see why Filipinos should start to care more and appreciate these houses that once dotted the roads of pre-war Philippines.

And there’s probably no better place to rekindle that passion for bygone architecture than in Iloilo City. The city is a history buff’s dream with its numerous Spanish-era churches and grand old mansions. On my third visit to Iloilo, I finally got to enter an ancestral house within the city, the Camiña Balay Nga Bato.

►NEARBY: GUIMARAS TRAVEL BLOG

It was lunchtime as we took shelter from the blistering heat of downtown Iloilo and crammed ourselves inside a cab. We just came from La Paz Market to have an authentic bowl of Netong’s Batchoy and a cup of Ilonggo coffee at Madge Café.

With still no rest from our early Tigerair flight from Manila, we decided to lie down a bit and enjoy our hotel of choice, Days Hotel Iloilo.

It was surprising to find Days Hotel Iloilo located inside a mall, the Atrium Mall to be exact. It’s actually the perfect location due to its proximity to many of Iloilo City’s tourist spots.

The hotel occupies the upper portion of the building which has a separate elevator access—security and privacy isn’t really a problem. The lift opens up to the hotel’s spacious lobby where their courteous staff never failed to greet us.

➤ EXPLORE NEARBY: GUIMARAS TRAVEL GUIDE

Ranier. Bryan. Erwin. Rick. Mugs scribbled with names line shelves after shelves of an obscure coffee shop inside Iloilo’s La Paz Public Market. From mugs painted in plain whites to colorfully printed ones, each ceramic cup is personalized with names of patrons regularly hanging out at Iloilo City’s Madge Café.

Our group has just finished bowls of  steaming batchoy at La Paz’s legendary Netong’s Batchoy. Everyone’s full, but wanted to relax a bit more before heading back to Days Hotel Iloilo, our lodging of choice for our stay in Iloilo City.
 
”Let’s have coffee”, someone suggested. And I immediately remembered a legit café tucked inside that same market.

The first thing that popped into my mind as the Tigerair plane I was boarding skidded into the tarmac of Iloilo International Airport was batchoy—that sinful noodle concoction native to the City of Love. The slightly sweet salty taste of its soup I once tasted right at this very airport triggered my mouth to salivate, making me forget about the pain in my ear, usually brought upon by riding airplanes.

Less than an hour later and we were passing through the darkened maze of La Paz Public Market, the place where batchoy originated from. That dish isn’t actually called La Paz Batchoy for nothing.

But we were not looking for just any batchoy, we were looking for a particular eatery claiming to be one of the original makers of that distinctive Iloilo noodle soup, Netong’s Original Special Batchoy.

►NEAR HERE: MADGE CAFE

I really didn’t plan to go off and cross the three main islands of the Philippines. It just so happened that I got an invite for a Mindanao festival and my other travel plans for the month of June 2012 just seamlessly volted in together. In the end, I ventured from one of the northernmost province of Luzon, visited the heart of Visayas and landed on the upper lands of Mindanao. Everything-everything in sixteen awesome days without boarding a single airplane.
 

Squeezing in one more church into our Iloilo side trip proved fatal.

The blue hour greeted us as we alighted at the sleepy town of Guimbal in Iloilo to shoot another of the province’s iconic stone edifice, the 400-year old San Nicholas of Tolentino Church. The church however was closed, due probably to the relative lateness of the hour. It was almost seven in the evening and the streets were almost deserted and the shops almost ready to close. I guess the practice of going to bed early in small towns still hold true at Guimbal.

We contented ourselves in shooting the church façade. Guimbal Church’s yellow-tinted stone walls perfectly contrasted with the electric hues of the early evening. And as I was contemplating on shooting the cemetery right beside the church, the rain fell.

It was a long day. The road from the sparkling white beach of Boracay to the massive Miag-Ao Church in Iloilo didn’t come easy. It was only a few hours after the sun shined down on the azure waters of Boracay when we left earlier in the day and the sun was already preparing to close shop as we alighted for the final time at the day’s destination.

I have seen Miag-Ao Church on various travelogues before and had always wanted to see its almost Aztec-Mayanish façade for myself. I haven’t been to South America and I’m not even sure if it does look anywhere near Aztec or Mayan, but that’s what my mind says to me.

Sparks flew and dark smoke came out of the jeep’s dashboard. Toxic fumes were spewing out a few inches short of our knees. We didn’t need to be told; we hurriedly scrambled out and hailed another jeepney that would take us to Iloilo’s massive stone churches.

The morning started at Boracay’s beach. The sun seemed healthier, now that we were leaving the island. Early birds were already at the beach, enjoying the warmth of a newborn sun and the calmer waters of the beach.

We should have stayed one more night, but Dipolog City cannot wait.

Running around, chasing massive old churches in Iloilo found us in its not so busy streets ‘til nine in the evening. A quick dinner at a local fast-food chain and we were zooming towards Fort San Pedro for our two-hour ferry ride to Bacolod. As luck would have it, we were on the wrong port and the last trip left three hours before. The next ride en route to our next stop would not be ‘til six in the morning. With limited budget, we had no other choice than to sleep at the port and wait it out. For seven hours, it almost felt like I’m a real backpacker haha.

Five butt-numbing hours of bus ride from Caticlan, we finally alighted at batchoyland. We were thinking of hitting the churches of Iloilo; the ones in Jaro, Molo, Guimbal and Miag-ao. Unfortunately we ran out of time and was only able to check out the UNESCO World Heritage stamped Miag-Ao Church and almost didn’t get to Guimbal on time for the blue hour. This is the last photo I took today.

What better way to end our trip in Iloilo and Guimaras than by having a steaming bowl of Batchoy. Bought at Bayani Café at the airport, it was expensive at Php90.00 but was very much worth it; the bowl was filled to brimming with all sorts of sinful ingredients. Good stuff!

After a month of being constricted to the confines of the office, a chance to go off flying again presented itself at last. With seven tons worth of bags and whatnots we flew over the sleeping metro, jet engines roaring through the still dark sky and waited for Iloilo to appear across the plane’s window.

I never thought I would get to drop by Guimaras Island during our stay in Iloilo as our real purpose then was to really visit my aunt who would do her Perpetual Oblation as a sister of the Oblate of the Society of Saint Pius X. So it was with much surprise that my nun aunt asked us if we wanted to visit the island right across the city, I was almost unable to contain my enthusiasm.

Nuns were not supposed to be so adventurous, right? Well I guess that doesn’t apply with my aunt. 
 
We headed off to the Ortiz wharf not so early the next day, breakfast in tow right after hearing mass. The cab ride took us an hour from Jaro Church.

The first ever Catholic Church built in Iloilo and the birthplace of the feverish Dinagyang Festival, San Jose Church was my second stop in Iloilo City.
 
Having no definite plan upon arriving downtown, I went haphazardly through Iloilo’s busy streets with just my iPhone map as guide.

I checked out the nearest plaza and churches tagged on my phone and just asked the local on how to get there. San Jose Church was really not on my on-the-fly itinerary, it just happened that when I visited Plaza Libertad, I saw its cream and maroon towers looming up from behind the park’s treeline.

The first thing that struck my fancy during my visit to Iloilo City was the old brick tower that juts out of the rooftop jumble of the metro. I marked it on my map as we passed by and said to myself that this is where I would begin exploring. 

After we met with my aunt, I immediately took out my camera, slung my backpack and walked my way through the streets of Iloilo. It was a blistering fifteen-minute noontime walk to the tower and I was surprised to find, upon arriving, that it was actually the belfry of the Jaro Cathedral which sits right across the street.

“Want to go visit your aunt in Iloilo this coming Wednesday?” My aunt asked me. “Yes, of course” I immediately replied. I just can’t resist an unplanned trip to anywhere. Wednesday was a week from now, and it just so happened that it was also my rest day.
 
Totally unprepared, I hurriedly asked my cousins who else was coming. A few raised hands, but two days prior to the flight date, everyone backed out.

So it was gonna be just me and my aunt.