Three days in Iloilo: sugar money built this town, and then the country forgot about it

Two nights in the city proper, with the neoclassical high street on foot and the district churches and sugar mansions a short ride out.

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Length
3 days, 2 nights
Where you stay
Iloilo City
Places
8 across 3 days
OpenFreeMap © OpenMapTiles Data from OpenStreetMap

In the late nineteenth century Iloilo was the second city of the Philippines and one of the richest ports in Asia. Sugar from the plantations across the strait on Negros went out through here, the British opened a consulate, and the families who owned the mills built themselves mansions, churches and a commercial street of stone and stucco that the Americans then rebuilt in art deco.

Then the sugar market turned, the trade moved, and Iloilo spent most of the twentieth century being quietly overlooked. Which is why it still has the buildings: a whole high street of them, three parish churches in three districts that were separate towns until 1937, and a scattering of Beaux-Arts houses standing behind their own gates in the middle of an ordinary city.

It is flat, walkable in parts, and the food is a serious argument. Iloilo invented La Paz batchoy, claims the best pancit and the best seafood in the Visayas, and does not consider any of this controversial. Two nights is enough for the heritage and the eating.

Highlights

  • Calle Real, a full street of neoclassical and art deco commercial buildings, restored and still in use
  • Molo Church, a Gothic-Renaissance pile with sixteen female saints down its nave
  • Jaro's bell tower, shaken off its own cathedral by an earthquake and left across the square
  • An 1865 stone-and-timber house in Molo where they still make chocolate on a stove
  • La Paz batchoy, pork offal, noodles and crushed chicharron, invented in this city

Where to stay

Iloilo City, two nights

Stay in City Proper near Calle Real or across the river along the Iloilo Business Park, which is the newer district built on an old airfield and has most of the good hotels and restaurants.

City Proper puts you inside walking distance of the street, the customs house and the two national museums. The business park is smarter, quieter and a ten minute ride from them. Either works for two nights.

Day by day

Day 1 in Iloilo City

The old high street, the customs house and the esplanade

Calle Real was the smartest shopping street in the provinces for about sixty years. The buildings on it went up between the 1890s and the 1930s, mostly for Chinese and mestizo trading houses, and they run from Spanish neoclassical through American beaux-arts into full art deco with curved corners and vertical fins. A conservation ordinance in 2010 stopped anybody painting over them and a lot have since been cleaned up.

At the bottom of the street is the port, and beside it the customs house the Americans built in 1916 to handle the sugar. It is neoclassical, faces the water, and is the single grandest building in the city.

Then finish along the river. The esplanade is a landscaped strip on both banks that the city built in the 2010s, and it is where Iloilo walks and runs in the evening.

  1. 15:30

    Calle Real

    Landmark

    Start at the top by the plaza and walk down. Look up: the ground floors are modern shops and everything above them is original. Most of the best facades are on the west side.

  2. 17:15

    Iloilo Customs House

    Architecture

    Built in 1916 by the American colonial architect Ralph Doane, on the river where the sugar boats loaded. Still a working customs office, so the interior is not open, and the exterior is the point.

  3. 18:00

    Iloilo River Esplanade

    Landmark

    A landscaped riverside walk several kilometres long with food kiosks along it. Busiest and best from five in the afternoon, and the sunset end is the western stretch.

  4. 19:30

    Seafood dinner

    Eat

    Oysters, scallops baked with garlic and cheese, and grilled fish, at one of the places off the esplanade or in the business park. Cheap by any standard and the shellfish comes from across the strait.

With more time: Plaza Libertad, a few streets east, is where the Spanish formally surrendered the Philippines in December 1898, and San Jose Church on it was founded by Jesuits in 1607. Both take twenty minutes.

Day 2 in Iloilo City

Molo, Jaro, and the houses sugar paid for

Molo was the Chinese mestizo quarter and it has the best church in the city: coral stone, twin spires, Gothic arches and, unusually, sixteen statues of female saints lining the nave, which is why locals call it the feminist church. Jose Rizal came here in 1886 and left a note about how much he liked it.

A few streets away is a house from 1865, built of stone below and hardwood above, which the family still owns and which they run as a small museum where they will make you thick tsokolate on a wood stove and serve it with rice cakes. It is the most enjoyable hour in Iloilo.

In the afternoon go north to Jaro, which was the sugar families' district. The cathedral there has a belfry standing on its own across the plaza, separated from the church by an earthquake, and the streets around it hold the mansions the mill owners built in the 1920s and 1930s.

  1. 09:00

    Molo Church

    Religious

    Built from 1831 of coral rock, and the only Gothic-Renaissance church in the region outside Manila. Free, open through the day, and the plaza outside has a bandstand and mango trees.

  2. 10:30

    Camiña Balay Nga Bato

    Culture

    A guided visit of about an hour, best booked ahead. The chocolate is ground from local cacao and beaten with a wooden whisk, and the tour covers how a bahay na bato is built to survive earthquakes.

  3. 12:30

    Pancit molo for lunch

    Eat

    The dish is named after this district and it is a pork dumpling soup rather than a noodle plate. Eaten here, in Molo, it is a different thing from the version elsewhere.

  4. 15:00

    Jaro Belfry

    Architecture

    Free-standing across the plaza from Jaro cathedral, built in the 1740s and shaken loose from its church by earthquakes since. You can climb partway up. The cathedral opposite holds the image of Our Lady of the Candles.

With more time: Nelly Garden, a Beaux-Arts mansion the Lopez family built in 1928, is a few streets from the belfry and opens by appointment; the Lizares and Molo mansions are similar and easier to see from the road. Molo Plaza between them has statues of Greek goddesses around a bandstand, for no reason anybody can explain.

Day 3 in Iloilo City

Batchoy in the market, a museum, and out

Go to La Paz market for breakfast, because that is where batchoy was invented in the 1930s and the original stalls are still there. It is pork and beef offal, round miki noodles, a shrimp and bone broth, fried garlic and a handful of crushed pork crackling on top, and it is eaten at seven in the morning by people going to work.

Then, back in town, the national museum's Western Visayas branch, which occupies the 1911 provincial jail and covers the archaeology of Panay, the sugar economy and the region's textiles in a building that has kept its cell blocks.

  1. 07:00

    Batchoy at La Paz market

    Eat

    From six in the morning. Ask for extra chicharron on top and a bread roll to dip. Under two pounds a bowl, and the stalls with queues are the ones that have been there longest.

  2. 09:00

    National Museum Western Visayas

    Culture

    Free, opens at nine, closed Mondays. The prehistoric burial jars and the sugar-era galleries are the strong rooms, and the converted cells are worth a look in themselves. Ninety minutes.

  3. 11:00

    Museo Iloilo

    Culture

    Next door, and the first government-funded provincial museum in the country when it opened in 1971. Small, and strong on the pre-colonial gold and the Chinese trade ceramics dug up on Panay.

  4. 12:30

    To the airport

    Travel

    Twenty kilometres north and about 45 minutes, longer in the morning. Buy Guimaras dried mangoes on the way rather than at the terminal.

With more time: The Museum of Philippine Economic History nearby, in a restored 1920s trading house, is the best of the three and covers how sugar and abaca made and unmade this city. The contemporary art museum out at the north end is the surprise, a serious three-floor gallery in a district of car showrooms.

Before you go

Getting there and around

Iloilo International is 20 kilometres north of the city with flights from Manila, Cebu, Davao and Singapore, and it is one of the better regional airports in the country. Ferries run to Bacolod across the strait in an hour and to Guimaras island in fifteen minutes.

The city proper is compact and the historic street is walkable. The districts, Molo, Jaro and La Paz, are two to four kilometres out and are jeepney or Grab rides of a few minutes each. Grab is reliable here and cheap.

How the city is laid out

Iloilo City is six former towns joined together, and the ones that matter are City Proper, where the port, the customs house and the old commercial street are; Molo, the Chinese mestizo district southwest with the best church; Jaro, the sugar aristocracy's district north with the cathedral and the mansions; and La Paz, east, where the noodle soup comes from.

Doing one or two districts at a time is the way to plan it, and none of them is more than fifteen minutes from another.

When to come

The dry months run roughly December to May. The Dinagyang festival on the fourth weekend of January is one of the largest in the Philippines, with tribal dance competitions in the streets and the whole city full; book months ahead or come another time.

Iloilo is on the typhoon track. June to November brings storms and the ferries stop when one is close.

Eating

La Paz batchoy is a bowl of offal, round miki noodles, shrimp broth, fried garlic and crushed pork crackling, invented in the La Paz market in the 1930s. Eat it there rather than in a chain.

Then pancit molo, which despite its name is a dumpling broth and not a plate of noodles; kansi, a sour beef shank soup with jackfruit; and fresh oysters and scallops from Guimaras and the strait. The mangoes from Guimaras are the sweetest in the country and locals will tell you so within ten minutes of meeting you.

Iloilo is what a rich port city looks like fifty years after the money left: the buildings kept, the pretension gone, the cooking taken seriously. Nobody is trying to sell you anything here and there is no queue for any of it.

Two nights, three districts, and batchoy at seven in the morning in a market.

Or make it a longer trip

These trips pass through here on the way somewhere else.

Make it your trip

Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.

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Common questions

Is Iloilo worth visiting?
Yes, and it is the least visited of the Philippines' heritage cities, which is part of the appeal. A whole street of pre-war commercial architecture, three good churches, the mansions of the sugar families and the best regional food in the Visayas, all in a city that is easy to move around.
How many days do you need in Iloilo?
Two nights covers the city and the districts. A third gets you Guimaras island, fifteen minutes across the strait, which is all mango plantations and quiet beaches, or the eighteenth-century Miagao church down the coast, which is a UNESCO site and about an hour each way.
What is La Paz batchoy?
A noodle soup of pork and beef offal, miki noodles, shrimp broth, fried garlic and crushed pork crackling, invented in the La Paz market district of this city in the 1930s. Every Filipino city sells a version and Iloilo considers all of them wrong.
Iloilo or Bacolod?
They are an hour apart by ferry and both were built on sugar. Iloilo has more surviving architecture and better food; Bacolod has the ruined mansion at Talisay and a friendlier reputation. Doing both takes four nights and one boat.
How do I get to Iloilo?
Fly. It is an hour from Manila and 45 minutes from Cebu, with several services a day, and the airport is modern. Ferries from Bacolod take an hour and from Cebu overnight. Copy this into the planner if you want to combine it with either.