Making Each Day Count

Last rainy Tuesday afternoon, D and I drove to Intramuros, the “walled city of Manila”. Our destination: Fort Santiago. This is the citadel built by the Spanish Governor Miguel Lopez de Legazpi in 1593. It is a famous historic site, as this was where our Philippine National Hero, Dr. Jose Rizal, was imprisoned prior to his execution in 1896. Recently, it had been reopened and tourists are starting to visit it once again. We parked near the Manila Cathedral. En route to Fort Santiago we passed by the Palacio del Gobernador. Luckily, there were only a handful of visitors when we got there.

Here are photos taken from my first ever visit to Fort Santiago.

The White Cross was the one that I’ll remember most. After the World War II, 600 bodies found in the nearby dungeons were buried en masse under the cross. As I read its history, I spent a few minutes of silence for the fallen.

We explored the place in less than two hours. Before we headed back home we checked out the newly reopened souvenir shop, Tesoro’s. They have a dining area and we treated ourselves with Filipino snacks: a big bag of biscocho, and sago’t gulaman.