Cebu was the first Spanish city in Asia, and most of its history hides in side streets: a coral house from the 1670s, a 1730 Jesuit lodge inside a hardware yard, a Spanish jail turned museum, and the beach where Magellan fell.
The 1871 Cárcel de Cebú, a working provincial jail until 2004, now holds galleries running from pre-colonial gold ornaments and Ming trade ceramics through the galleon era to the Japanese occupation.
Hidden behind a hardware warehouse on Zulueta Street, this coral-block house carries 1730 carved above its arch, making it one of the oldest dated dwellings in the country. Inside: Parian relics and occupation-era photos.
Built roughly 1675-1700 from coral stone, hardwood and egg-white mortar by a Chinese merchant family who married into the Yaps. Still furnished with santos, Ming jars and a capiz-shuttered sala open to the street.
Seat of the archdiocese since 1595. The coral-limestone facade and squat belfry survive from the 18th-century rebuild, while the nave was reconstructed after 1945 bombing. The museum occupies the old rectory next door.
The shoreline where Lapu-Lapu's warriors killed Ferdinand Magellan on 27 April 1521. A Spanish obelisk raised in 1866 to Magellan faces the 1969 bronze of Lapu-Lapu across the plaza, with a painted battle mural hall behind.
Juan Arellano's neoclassical capitol of 1937-38 closes the north end of Osmeña Boulevard with a domed rotunda and carabao-and-farmer allegories. It served as Japanese headquarters in 1942 and a US Army facility in 1945.
Cebu's civic memorial to José Rizal on Osmeña Boulevard, holding Rizaliana, Cebuano first editions, revolution-era documents from 1898 and memorabilia of Sergio Osmeña, the Cebuano who became the country's second president.
The 1912 American-era waterworks fountain, later named for Sergio Osmeña, anchors the city's civic ring. Liberation parades passed here in 1945; today the rotunda fills at dusk with vendors, joggers and Sinulog crowds.
An 1850s Parian merchant house bought by the Gorordo family in 1863 and home to Juan Gorordo, the first Filipino bishop of Cebu. Coral base, tabique walls, a balustered azotea and rooms furnished as they stood in 1900.
Built in 1972 by Cebu's Chinese-Filipino community, descendants of the Sangley traders of the Parian. Ninety-nine steps climb past dragon balustrades to shrines of Lao Tzu where devotees still throw jiaobei fortune blocks.
USC traces its line to the Jesuit Colegio de San Ildefonso of 1595. Its museum on P. del Rosario Street holds Iron Age burial jars, Visayan ethnographic textiles and Spanish colonial ecclesiastical silver. Weekdays only.
Laid out in the 1700s as the Plaza de Armas outside the fort walls, the acacia-shaded square covers an excavated Spanish-era well and faces the 1910 American customs house, now the presidential guesthouse on the pier.