It's always a dream of mine to visit the province of Ilocos here in the Philippines. I knew that the province got plenty of tourists spots that local tourists and even foreign tourists would want to visit or even stay for a while. So, when the chance to visit the province presented itself I immediately grabbed it. I'm actually dreaming to only visit the province of Ilocos but it became some sort of travel-vacation since it lasted about 4 nights and 5 days.
One of my sought after tourist destination in Ilocos is the famous Paoay Church that was completely built in 1710 and located in Paoay, Ilocos Norte. For those who don't know, the province of Ilocos is actually composed of two provinces - Ilocos Norte and Ilocos Sur. The church's name is actually Saint Augustine Church, locals commonly called it Paoay Church.
The church is the only place that we visited on the first day of our vacation since the travel from our point of origin to Paoay took us about 6-7 hours, an exhausting travel to say the least. So, we decided to find a place to rest for the night and continue our travel the next day.
The next morning we are all smiles, we took a hearty breakfast and we are all excited to visit another tourist destination. Luckily, the owner of the hotel that we stayed in for the night offered his help to escort us to Bangui Beach where the famous Bangui Windmills are located.
The Bangui Windmills is also a tourist attraction that I really want to visit because of it's panoramic beauty that adores the shore of Bangui Beach. The wind mills are perfectly lined in a curve just right the sea shore. They are located at Brgy. Bantoc, Bangui, Ilocos Norte.
To be honest I already knew what a windmill looks like but I was still mesmerized when I saw them and they are more attractive when they are spinning at the same time.
While at Bangui Beach we noticed a very attractive swimming pool overlooking Bangui beach, we decided to stay for a night, take a rest, swim at the swimming pool for the rest of the day then continue our travel the next day.
After lounging at the swimming pool for the rest of the day we took turns in cooking our dinner. We bought fresh sea foods from a nearby small market. I've been longing for a squid barbecue so I did not waste this opportunity to have them.
After dinner we pampered our backs by sleeping at a nippa hut. The night was so quiet you can only hear the avast sound of ocean waves from the beach and the air was like an icy cool smooth breeze coming from inside a refrigerator.
The next morning we again ate our breakfast overlooking the beach, of course our food is still mostly sea foods.
These are the nippa huts where we spent the night
The next day we continued our travel to see the famous Patapat Bridge located in the northern most part of the province. The bridge was located at Pagudpud, Ilocos Norte. It was located right at the coast of the ocean.
It was built during the 80's connecting the province of Ilocos and Cagayan.
The bridge was not built to be a tourist attraction its just turned out to be one. Maybe because of the mountain that is beside the road the builders have no choice but to make the bridge as close as possible to the stony mountain that makes the foundation of the bridge a lot stronger.
Also, Patapat Bridge is one of my sought after tourist destination, you have to see it if you visit Ilocos Norte.
After we visited Patapat Bridge we again visited another windmills tourist attraction, the Burgos Wind Farm, located in Burgos, Ilocos Norte. So, we headed back to where we came from just to see it.
This wind farm in Ilocos is arguably the largest wind farm in all of south east asia. Before you can feast your eyes with these giant electricity making machines you will be escorted by authorities to reach the top of the mountain where you can see all the windmills in one location.
Although windmills are now common all around the world it will still amaze you when you see them for the first time especially when their blades are spinning when hit by winds coming from the ocean.
And finally it is now time for us to go home. But we did not go straight in going home because to decided to visit one of the oldest historical location in all of Ilocos which is Calle Crisologo.
Calle Crisologo is famous because of its old houses dated back from the Spanish colonization of the Philippines. The province did well in preserving the houses along the road of Calle Crisologo.
Honestly, I want to make a return visit to Calle Crisologo because I failed to take a good photo of it. Previous visitors of Calle Crisologo said that if you want to take a great photo of the site you should visit it right at sunrise when almost no one is around.
That's it guys, I hope my travel experiences in Ilocos will inspire you to visit the province.
I am an I.T. professional (Computer Engineer) working in a private company, a blogger, a father, and a husband.
