- Nov 3, 2014

Exploring Baguio: The City of Pines, Strawberries and Cheesecakes

Baguio City. it is popularly known as the "Summer Capital of the Philippines", one of the coolest place I have ever set my foot into... It was the next best thing to the word "cool" and I mean, literally. The name of the city is derived from bagiw, the Ibaloi word for "moss".

Baguio is the one of my many "fave" places that I'm dying to visit, and I tell you it's been on the top of my list since...uhm... forever! They called the place the City of Pines, and I was about to discover why. I have never imagined myself being in this place except today. Let me welcome you to Baguio City.

Question # 1: How to Get There?

From Makati you need to ride a cab or travel along train to a bus station in Buendia, or so I thought. The main transportation is via Bus, from the station it's an 8 hour travel, so we plan to start travelling at around 8pm or 9pm. This will ensure us that by 5am we are at the bus station in Baguio.

Upon arrival, the smell of fresh cold air greeted us. I am the one most excited since this would be my first. Jessa already had been here last year with her officemates and spent a worthwhile and unforgettable team building here. So, I was super hyped. But what caught my attention though is not really the cold weather, that came in second to what I found.... Strawberry Taho.

After walking along Session Road (and I can't help but to make sure I took a memorabilia of the famous street, afterall, a band was named after it), we went along and find a place to stay, it took us some time since based on our plan, we should've gotten a reservation with a certain lodge. When we arrived there they said that they are full and the price they had advertised was changed since it's off season. So we decided to shove along and looked for other cheaper alternative.

Question #2: What to Do Here?

After we're able to find a place to stay ( a very affordable one too) we decided to walk around before deciding where to go first. Actually we had a list, but for the three-day stay here we need to cut off a few destinations. So we decided to take major destinations and food spots within three days, namely, Birmingham Park, Wright Park, The Botanical Gardens, Mine's View Park, the Tea House Restaurant for the ever so popular Blueberry Cheesecake, Pizza Volante, some other sites and if we still have time, visit some burger place down the road.

We decided to first head to a nearby church before going in Birmingham Park, The church is called Our Lady of the Atonement Cathedral. It's about 8am and we're trying to see if we can get to mass before we start walking around the city.

So it turns out that they have masses in two languages, English (which we just missed) and the local language, which we find hard to understand. So we just prayed and finished the mass halfway and started the travel. On our way though we've found a very simple spot where we can eat.

First food-stop was supposed to be Pizza Volante, however since it's almost noon, we've decided to take the Botanical Garden first. On our way to a jeepney stop though we've unexpectedly discovered that one of the food stops we wanted to check was nearby, The Teahouse Restaurant where they serve a one-of-a-kind Blueberry Cheesecake. Thanks @MonelleAray for the tip.

The Botanical Garden

Our first destination was the Botanical Garden. A lot is known about this place, I was quite amazed when we arrived, seeing all the flora's of the place. A lot of greens.

Mine's View Park

We've checked the place a bit, but since it's past noontime we've decided to come back to this place during the morning so that we can enjoy the view, the fog, and the climate. There's a bit of an entrance here but not that expensive. One tip though, there are a lot of things to buy here for souvenirs, but don't buy that much. If you need to, try checking around, others sell cheaper if you just look. There are a lot of things to check in here too, they have a horse ride... no, I mean horse ride pictorial... I think they just have the horse here for picture taking. One of the popular sites here was a couple of St. Bernards for photoshoots. We'll give those a try some other time.

Before heading along we stumbled into a place that spells pizza... they call it Pizza Volante. This is actually a branch they have near Wright Park. The other one we saw was within the metro near Birmingham Park. This one's a lot cooler. It seems that places here seemed to get better and better. We ordered our hungry tired selves a cheese overload pizza.

Wright Park and the White Mansion

After eating at Volante's we started walking up the path, we got kinda lost having that a lot of people seemed to be going up the stairs and we took the other route where there would be no stairs, I don't think that it's an endless road so we took it. After a long walk up, we had a stroll down Wright Park. This is a nice place, It's where the White Mansion was located.

We stayed at a place called DL Divine Inn. It's a cozy and accomodating place to be when you're in Baguio. The place is nice, the food here is nice and most of all, the owners are superb! They where the one's accomodating the place, they are very hands-on and made sure you're enjoying your stay here in Baguio, even if you're transient or would stay along for a bit.