Wines & Prologues

Dating way back 1738, this stone fort is the oldest and smallest fort in the Philippines. It was a military defense built by the Spanish but later taken over by filipino revolutionaries who turned it into their stronghold—if I got my history right.

Fort San Pedro is open to the public 8:00am to 7:00pm and has an entrance fee of 50php for tourists. They’ll also ask for any identification so they can give you a receipt of some sort as the said place is under the management of the Cebu City government.

I will be very honest here, although the fort do have some colorful history behind it, I was a little disappointed when I got there. Coming from the National Museum of the Philippines-Cebu which was just a few minutes away, I’ve expected itt to be more, I don’t know—more?

Aside from the buzzling entrance filled with visitors lining up to pay and some reading off information about Fort San Pedro that they’ve put up at one side (I wanted to read here too but there were so many people and the texts were so little, and I’m short and near-sighted), across where you pay for the entrance, there was also a reunion scheduled that day so imagine finally going inside and seeing a karaoke set up in the middle.

I’ve read that occasions are allowed inside as the lawn in spacious enough for a large group. But still…

So I walked around the reunion tarps and canopies, and found myself inside a small art gallery where a few paintings of Lapu-lapu and Magellan were. I didn’t took photos since it wasn’t allowed in the 3 art galleries that I went to earlier that day, so I just assumed that the rule also applies here.

Went upstair to see what’s in store, but there wasn’t also that much either. There were canons, that I’ve read that one faced the sea and the other on land. There were, however, a lot of people taking photos that I tried my hardest not to photobomb.

My driver said that there used to be rooms with old things that you can check out but all the doors I came across with were closed or barricaded. The cute cats around helped though.

Also, the wind was so strong, I couldn’t keep my dress to behave.

All in all, would I recommend any of you people to visit there? If you have the time, I would say yes, because any place that holds a significant part of history should be visited. Can you skip it? Again, yes, because as I’ve mentioned there was barely anything there other than to just see the fort and walk around it. It’s a 50-50 decision. I even told my friends who went to Cebu to skip this place because they plan to visit churches and some other place.

If your itinerary is quite flexible, sure. If not, you can skip.

Off to another place! Bye-bee!