Pila Heritage Town

Pila is a small town on the southern shore of Laguna de Bay that kept what most Philippine towns lost - the complete Spanish colonial plan of plaza, church and town hall with two-storey ancestral houses lining the square, largely unaltered and declared a National Historical Landmark in the 2000s. The houses are mostly from the first decades of the twentieth century, in the bahay na bato manner with stone lower storeys, wooden uppers and capiz-shell sliding windows, and many are still lived in by the families that built them. The church of San Antonio de Padua faces the plaza, and the town hall on the opposite side dates from the same period. There is a small museum on the square covering Pila's pre-colonial past - archaeological finds from the area point to a settlement of some importance well before the Spanish arrived. A walk round the plaza takes an hour, and this is a place to look at rather than a set of attractions.

What you actually see

• The plaza - the intact colonial square and its layout.
• The ancestral houses - stone-and-wood homes with capiz windows.
• San Antonio church - the parish church facing the square.
• The Pila Museum - finds from the pre-colonial settlement.

When to go

November to May for pleasant walking. Weekday mornings are quiet; the town fiesta and Holy Week bring crowds and processions.

Honest expectations

Most houses are private homes - you look from the street, not inside. The museum has limited hours. There is little in the way of cafés or facilities; this is a residential town, not a tourist one.

Nearby

Nagcarlan's underground cemetery, Liliw and the Pagsanjan area are all within half an hour.