San Guillermo Church, Bacolor

San Guillermo at Bacolor was a large sixteenth-century church until the years after the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo, when successive lahar flows - volcanic mud mobilised by monsoon rain - buried the town of Bacolor under metres of material. The church filled to roughly half its height, and rather than abandon it the parish cleared what it could, floored the building at the new ground level and carried on: today you walk in at what used to be the level of the upper windows, the old rose window sits at chest height, and the buried lower half of the nave remains under your feet. A small museum beside the church displays photographs of the burial and objects recovered from it. The town around it was rebuilt on the raised ground, so the whole landscape sits several metres higher than it did in 1990. It is one of the clearest places in the country to see what a volcanic disaster actually does to a settlement.

What you actually see

• The raised floor - the nave at what was window height.
• The half-buried facade - the front sunk into the lahar plain.
• The recovered interior - altars and images reinstalled above the fill.
• The museum - photographs and objects from the burial.

When to go

November to May. Weekday mornings are quietest; it is a working parish with regular Masses and weddings.

Honest expectations

The church is in use, so sightseeing waits for services to finish. The museum has limited hours. Bacolor town itself has few visitor facilities.

Nearby

Betis Church at Guagua is fifteen minutes away; San Fernando and the Pinatubo trek jump-offs are close.