Church of San Agustin and Church of La Nuestra Senora de la Asuncion

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Church of San Agustin

   The church at Paoay looks like it is built to withstand a siege, and in a way it is. San Agustin stands on a flat stretch of Ilocos Norte, in the northwest corner of Luzon, and its sides are propped by enormous stepped buttresses, as massive as bastions, that march along the flanks like the legs of a great animal. The Augustinian friars who built it between about 1694 and 1710 were working in earthquake country, and the buttresses were their answer. The walls are coral stone and brick, laid in thick layers and held with a mortar that, according to local lore, included sugar cane juice and egg white. The result is a heavy, dark, strangely beautiful church that belongs to the family of Baroque Churches of the Philippines, listed by UNESCO in 1993.

   Read the complete Church of San Agustin write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Church of San Agustin is where the day begins. Next is Historic City of Vigan.

2. 2. Historic City of Vigan

   Vigan survived the Pacific War almost whole, and that is the secret of its charm. Founded by the Spanish in the sixteenth century as a trading post at the mouth of the Mestizo River in Ilocos Sur, on the northwest coast of Luzon, it grew rich on Chinese silk, Ilocano goods and the galleon trade, and its merchants built houses of brick and stone with wooden upper floors and sliding capiz-shell windows. Together these make one of the best-preserved colonial towns in Southeast Asia, which UNESCO recognised in 1999.

   Read the complete Historic City of Vigan write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Historic City of Vigan comes up about 65 km into the recorded legs. Next is Church of La Nuestra Senora de la Asuncion.

3. 3. Church of La Nuestra Senora de la Asuncion

   Santa Maria is the church that makes you earn the view. It stands on a hill above the town of the same name in Ilocos Sur, and reaching it means climbing an imposing stone staircase of about eighty steps, flanked by walls, which opens onto a broad, open terrace. The church was built in the eighteenth century by Augustinian friars, and it looks more like a fortress than a house of prayer, with a long, plain, buttressed brick facade and a separate bell tower standing on the hill's edge. Walls surround the whole complex, because during the colonial period a church could also be a refuge and a stronghold. It is one of the four Philippine churches in the UNESCO group of Baroque Churches.

   Read the complete Church of La Nuestra Senora de la Asuncion write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 103 km into the recorded legs you reach Church of La Nuestra Senora de la Asuncion. Next is back through Historic City of Vigan.

4. 4. back through Historic City of Vigan

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Historic City of Vigan write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Historic City of Vigan, late in the day. Next is Church of San Agustin.

5. 5. Church of San Agustin

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Church of San Agustin write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at Church of San Agustin. That is the ride.