Each heritage house at Las Casas was reconstructed "brick by brick" and "plank by plank" as the Las Casas staff members describe it. Amazing.
When you enter the place, it's like entering Intramuros. Guards are dressed up as Guardia Civil. And you'll be walking on cobblestoned streets (make sure to wear comfortable shoes or sandals).
Each house is named after the place where the house came from. For example, the reception is an old house from Mexico, Pampanga and thus, it's aptly named Casa Mexico.
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| Casa Mexico: The reception area of Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar |
You could either avail of a daytour package or stay overnight. If you stay overnight, you could book a hotel room at the Paseo de Escolta, a replica of the commercial establishments in Escolta in the early 1900s where the ground floor had shops and the upper 2 floors were accommodations for tourists.
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| Paseo de Escolta |
At the time we booked, all hotel rooms were already fully booked so we ended up occupying rooms at the ground floor of one of the houses called Casa San Miguel.
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| Casa San Miguel |
Here's how our room looked like.
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| Lower Casa San Miguel. |
To explore the place on your own, you could either rent a bike, golf cart, ride a calesa or just walk.
But it's best to join a guided walking tour since the tour guides share a lot of interesting anecdotes about each house and some refresher facts about Philippine history. Tours are held from 830am to 430pm every hour. Assembly is right outside Casa Mexico, the reception.
The first house we visited is called Casa Binondo 3 or Casa Vyzantina. This house was built in 1890 in Binondo, Manila. After becoming a family residence, it became a school for elementary and high school students until 1919. After the WW2, it was leased to various tenants. And up to 2009, it was home to 50 squatter families until it was moved to Las Casas.
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| Casa Vyzantina or Casa Binondo 3. |
Today, Casa Vyzantina is the premier hotel at Las Casas. The rate is a whopping Php150,000 per night - it has 7 rooms and can accommodate up to 16 pax and the package comes with a personal butler. You can also rent out individual rooms which range anywhere from Php16,000 to Php40,000 per night. Whoa...
Normally, you can't enter the casas that are for rent but luckily, the room at the ground floor was unoccupied so they allowed us to take a peek inside. (BTW, you've to remove your shoes every time you enter any of the heritage houses.)
What greeted us when we entered was this replica of Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo's painting of La Barca de Aqueronte (Charon's boat) rendered in mosaic.
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| Hidalgo's The boat of Charon in a mosaic replica. |
And when you look up at the ceiling, you'll see more replica paintings and antique chandeliers.
Sorry, I wasn't able capture the title of these paintings.
This is a mosaic on the ceiling too.
Here's the main dining room.
And the room for rent at the ground floor. If I am not mistaken, this has a price tag of Php22,000/night.
Notice the room's wallpaper? That's hand-painted.
Check out the room's ceiling - the texture is made from plaster of Paris.
There's a bath tub too.
Inside the toilet & bath, look up and see the intricate mosaic design of the ceiling.
And guess what the toiletries are? Hermes.
This one is called Casa Cagayan - they are stilt houses also known as Poor Man's houses in Cagayan. They are elevated because they are usually located along the shoreline. There are 4 stilt houses in Las Casas and they are all for rent.
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| Casa Cagayan. |
This one is called Casa Jaen from Nueva Ecija and it served as the residence of the first Mayor of Jaen.
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| Casa Jaen 1 |
This is called Casa Luna, also from La Union. Luna, La Union (formerly Namacpacan, La Union) was named in honor of the Luna brothers - Antonio Luna (the general) and Juan Luna (the painter). The owner of this house was a relative of the mother of the Luna brothers and was built in 1850.
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| Casa Luna |
We passed through the azotea of Casa Luna to enter the house (a reminder from our tour guide - a balcony at the back is called an azotea; a balcony in front of the house is called a veranda).
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| Casa Luna's Azotea |
Surrounding Casa Luna is a narrow passageway for servants to get around the house while doing their duties so they are not within the visibility of the home owners.
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| Passageway for servants |
This is inside the Casa Luna. What makes this house interesting is it served as a headquarters for US Armed Forces and this is where they discussed plans on how to capture General Yamashita.
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| Inside Casa Luna. |
Casa Luna contains a lot of interesting antique items and collections. One of which is an antique iron - the one our ancestors used when there was still no electricity. Our tour guide demonstrated to us how it was to iron clothes then.
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| How our ancestors ironed clothes before electricity was invented. |
This is Casa Meycauayan from Bulacan. The stone structure is made from adobe.
This is Casa Quiapo, the casa which has probably the most colorful past. It was built in 1867 as a residence for the painter Rafael Enriquez y Villanueva. Later its bodega became a place where young artists train - the earliest alumni include Felix Hidalgo and Juan Luna. Later on, it also schooled the likes of Fernando Amorsolo and Botong Francisco. In 1908, it became UP's College of Fine Arts. When school operations moved to Padre Faura, it became a bowling alley, then a dorm, a brothel, an abortion clinic and also a home for informal settlers before it was moved to Las Casas.
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| Casa Meycauayan |
This is Casa Lubao. It was built in 1920 in Lubao, Pampanga. Our tour guide said that the family who owned this house was the family who helped ex-President Diosdado Macapagal in his schooling. To repay the family's kindness, Macapagal's mom did laundry for the family.
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| Casa Lubao. |
Today, the ground floor serves as Las Casas' game room. There are billiards, darts, table tennis table, pool table ... You can also play piko, hula hoop, domino, tumbang preso, Chinese garter, jumping rope, trumpo, chess...
and sungka. It's a good place to educate kids about traditional Pinoy games.
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| Sungka |
You can also borrow board games like Game of the Generals, Snakes and Ladder, Chinese checkers, mahjong and Scrabble.
This is the veranda of Casa Lubao.
Check out the intricate design of the veranda's ceiling.
In each corner of the ceiling, you'll find a tray of fruits like this.
This is inside Casa Lubao.
The main dining hall.
The living room.
Check out the antique chandelier and ceiling details.
A few meters in front of Casa Lubao and facing the sea is a sculpture of Lola Basyang - Severino Reyes' pen name. Yes, Lola Basyang is technically a he.
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| Lola Basyang |
And this is the Lola Basyang bridge at Las Casas. The bridge is adorned with local mythical creatures in Lola Basyang tales like tikbalang and manananggal.
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| Lola Basyang bridge |
This is Casa Baliuag I built around 1898 in Baliuag, Bulacan. The only thing I can remember about this house is that 21 children grew up in this house (the owner married twice - he married for the second time after the first wife passed away).
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| Casa Baliuag |
This is Casa Binondo 1. What captured my interest though was the sculpture of kids playing palo sebo.
Around Las Casas, you'll see a lot of these scupltures.
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| Kids playing luksong tinik. |
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| Kid playing sipa. |
This is Casa Quiapo, the casa which has probably the most colorful past. It was built in 1867 as a residence for the painter Rafael Enriquez y Villanueva. Later its bodega became a place where young artists train - the earliest alumni include Felix Hidalgo and Juan Luna. Later on, it also schooled the likes of Fernando Amorsolo and Botong Francisco. In 1908, it became UP's College of Fine Arts. When school operations moved to Padre Faura, it became a bowling alley, then a dorm, a brothel, an abortion clinic and also a home for informal settlers before it was moved to Las Casas.
For dining, Las Casas has 2 restaurants. Casa Unisan (from Unisan, Quezon) serves Filipino and Spanish food and there's also an Italian Restaurant near Casa Binan.
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| Casa Unisan |
We tried both restaurants and the food is good. Here's inside Casa Unisan.
An interesting ice cream flavor to try - Gabi with pinipig.
For souvenir shopping, you can visit the stores at the ground floor of Paseo Escolta.
There's a photo studio where you can don period costumes and have your sepia photos taken. After all, a lot of Filipino movies like Jose Rizal, El Presidente, Asiong Salonga, etc. were shot at Las Casas.
There's also a store selling antiques.
A store selling souvenirs.
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| Filipiniana dolls |
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| Made from Pinatubo ash. |
Other activities you can do while at Las Casas- swim at the batis-inspired pool.
Or go to the beach.
There's also a spa for those who want to try traditional hilot massage.
During the night, there's not much activity (except on Saturday nights when they hold a cultural show) but you may want to take a stroll to burn calories after eating. Haha...
The Las Casas' website states that there are 27 heritage houses to date. When we visited, construction, rebuilding and retouching are in full swing.
And they are building a whole new section of houses, even a convention center and a church near the Lola Basyang bridge. The tour guide said that they are hoping APEC will be held in Las Casas in 2015. That'll be a great boost for local tourism if that comes true.
Anyway, if you like old houses, architecture, photography, history or just simply want to appreciate your Filipino roots better, you may want to visit Las Casas.
P.S. On your way to Las Casas, you may also want to drop by the Mount Samat Memorial Cross.
