Juan Luna Shrine

Juan Luna was born at Badoc in 1857 and became the most celebrated Filipino painter of the nineteenth century - his enormous Spoliarium won the gold medal at the 1884 Madrid exposition, an event the Propaganda Movement seized on as proof that Filipinos could equal Spaniards, and the painting now dominates the National Museum of Fine Arts in Manila. The house he was born in was reconstructed in the 1970s in the bahay na bato style on its original site, and it functions as a shrine and small museum: reproductions of his major paintings, family material, period furnishings and displays on his brother Antonio Luna, the general assassinated in 1899 during the Philippine-American War. The originals are elsewhere, which is the honest limitation of the visit. Badoc also holds the shrine of La Virgen Milagrosa in the town church, and sits on the coast road between Vigan and Laoag.

What you actually see

• The reconstructed house - the bahay na bato on the original site.
• The painting reproductions - copies of Luna's major works.
• The family displays - material on Juan and Antonio Luna.
• The period rooms - furnishings of a nineteenth-century household.

When to go

November to May for travel. Weekday mornings are quiet; the museum keeps set hours and closes on some days.

Honest expectations

The paintings here are reproductions - the originals are in Manila and abroad. The house is a 1970s reconstruction. It takes under an hour and works as a stop between Vigan and Laoag.

Nearby

Badoc church and its Marian shrine are in town; Paoay and Vigan are within an hour either way.