Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar, Bagac, Bataan

Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar Heritage Resort is one big museum! I must admire how the resort owners have scoured the archipelago for such decaying structures, disassembled them, and then reassembled them -- brick by brick, plank by plank, as they say The structures were beautiful, no doubt, and I can't help but admire all that attention to detail that are evident in both the interiors and outside of these heritage houses. While the stone parts may no longer be original, that's easily forgivable with all the architectural beauty that they've managed to salvage.

A sprawl of houses with stone bases, wooden upper floors and red clay roofs greeted us behind sliding capiz windows as we went sauntering along a narrow hallway once used by alipin sagigilid, a type of Spanish-era servants who were not allowed into the main halls of these stately homes. We caught a shimmering glimpse of the past behind a facade of the present! A time where carriages carried the rich illustrados, powerful friars and gobernadorcillos across cobbled streets; an era much more regal and opulent than the present!