One day trip to City of Pines: Baguio City

Are you searching for the cool place and want to escape to the hot weather that u experienced right now? well Baguio City awaits you

Transportation

Approximately 300kms from Manila to Baguio if you travel by bus or even lesser if you travel by car. it is depend to your fare if u want to arrived early in Baguio, one is Regular fare which costs around 450php and the other one is first class which costs 750php. in our case we chose to avail the first class seating choice since it will be more convenient for us given that it has already a comfort room inside, avoiding more stopovers along the way so we can arrive earlier to Baguio. We left the terminal around 12:30AM and arrived to Baguio at exactly 4:30AM.

Accomodation

If you're going to stay in Baguio, there's a lot of affordable hotels or transient house around the corner. Transient houses are cheaper than the actual hotel for 500php per night you can enjoy your stay in the city. but in our case since we haven't book any hotel online, we've decided to look around for a hotel that can do early check ins. we've stayed in Villa sylvina their rate is 1200php per night but i can say that the expenses are worth it because they offer a lot of awesome services plus this hotel is accesible.

Exploring the City

After unpacking our stuff and have our breakfast we've decided to go out to find a breath taking scenery of the city and these are my bucketlist:

• The Mansion
• Wright Park
• Mines view park
• Good shepherd convent
• Baguio cathedral
• Burnham park

The Mansion

It was built by William Cameron Forbes and designed by William E. Parsons. it is also known as the Baguio Conference and the place where the Presidents of the Philippines stayed from Manuel L. Quezon up to present. We just had our pictures taken outside the mansion because it is prohibited to go inside due to privacy reasons.

Wright Park

In front of The Mansion is Wright Park it is known as the Pool of Pines because of a long reflecting pool lined with pine tree. if you want to try their famous strawberry ice cream you can purchase that inside of the park, not only ice creams but of course you can also buy some souvenirs and also inside the park they offer some horseback riding costs 300php for one hour and 200php for half an hour, if you can't afford that you can just have your picture taken riding the horse for 60php. You can also have your picture taken wearing the igorot costume for 10php.

The Mines View Park

Mines view park is one of the most famous tourist spots in the city. from the park you can see the Benguets Copper and Gold mines surrounding the mountains. You can also see the huge dog here but the price was kind of disappointing for me 150php for one picture but the thing is u dont mind the price because once you hold the dog its amazing as for me as a dog lover i really loved to

Also inside the park u can rent the igorot costume cost 20php. but what amuses me the most are the View from the park.

Good shepherd Convent

This is the perfect place where you can buy their famous ube,strawberry jam and other "pasalubong" which are made in Baguio. its kind of disappointing because we didn't get the chance to buy some jam because it was already out of stock, we've chosed this place because compare to the central market here is cheaper. Also you can have a view here like in Mines View Park.

Baguio Cathedral

A Roman Catholic Cathedral located at the session road of Baguio City. dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. it's distinctive pink exterior,twin spires and stained glass windows make it a popular tourist attraction in Baguio. it served as an evacuation centre under the Japanese occupation during World war II. we've just prayed for minutes and we walked around, i've noticed a store nearby where in the nuns are in charge it was the store for souvenir shops from the church,rice cake and sweet shops.

Burnham Park

Burnham park is the heart of the Baguio city, the mother of all parks in Baguio city also as familiar to filipinos as Luneta Park. Designed by and named after the architect Daniel Hudson Burnham. there's a lot of things that you can do inside the park you can try the man made lake with rowboats for hire and it cost 150php for one hour also you can rent a bike for 50php per hour. you can also see the Rose garden,The orchidarium, skating rink,children's playground and some other places that you can relax.

We didn't explore much inside the park because we're a bit tired from walking but i can say that the Burnham park is has an exceptional beauty.

To summarize everything, I can tell you that Baguio is one of the best places to go when you want to unwind and have a vacation from stressful city life.

there's a lot of beautiful spots here such as Camp John Hay, Philippine Military Academy,Tam awan Village, Bencab Museum, Ifugao Wood carvers, Lourdes Grotto, Dominican Hill,Strawberry farm and Bell church. I'm kind of disappointed though because we didn't have the chance to visit the said places. Philippines are so lucky to have a place like Baguio. this one of the best places where the weather is cold despite the fact that Philippines is a tropical country which simply means that the weather is unpredictable.