Vigan

I was there, October 22-25, 2014.

The sights of Vigan give a visitor an impression that the City froze for centuries. With it's massive centuries-old buildings numbering to more than a hundred, it should be that it was once a prosperous town. But for one reason or another, this prosperity suddenly stopped and the town was doomed to age and decay. It survived the years, almost intact. It survived the Philippine Revolution, the Philippine-American War, the World War II and hundreds of earthquakes and typhoons that battered it. Its almost serendipitous preservation, with slight changes for centuries, is unbelievable. Time stood still for Vigan. The Philippines is fortunate to still have Vigan as a window to its past.

A house along Calle Liberation reveals what's beneath the old plastered walls. 

A closer look at those brick walls.

With the creditable efforts of the local officials, the City is enlisted in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. It was a feat, considering the high UNESCO standards it had to meet and the conflicting interests of the owners of the tagged buildings it had to grapple.Vigan made it to the list because it "represents a unique fusion of Asian building design and construction with European colonial architecture and planning." And also, "Vigan is an exceptionally intact and well preserved example of an European trading town in East and South-East Asia."

Wait till darkness falls and Vigan's evening ambiance will you transport back in time a few hundred years, more or less. 

Another look at the well-photographed Calle Crisologo.