Visiting Baclayon Church

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Be sure you’ve read my previous Bohol posts before continuing with this one 🙂 Read Parts one, two, and three.


From the Loboc River Cruise, there was only stop left for us in the tour – the oldest church in the island and the second oldest in the country: Baclayon Church.

I didn’t get a very good picture of the church because it started to drizzle when we got there. But the Church faces the sea and the view from the museum’s windows were so picturesque. The breeze was refreshing too. I understand that the Parish school is right beside the church. It must be difficult to concentrate on school work when you’ve got such a lovely view just outside. 🙂

For lack of a beautiful picture by yours truly, I turned to my trusty search engine and found these lovely photos:

Don’t you just love those colors? Here’s another photo, too bad the uploaded photo is quite small. 

It would have been nice to explore the interior of the Church, but they had a seminar ongoing at the time, so we didn’t get to walk around that much. I remember having gone there the first time I was in town in 1999 or 2000. But I didn’t get any photos. Old Catholic churches are interesting even just for all the history you can find in its furnishings. The fact that it was already raining outside, and the sun was hiding, added to my frustration at only having my camera phone for pictures. 

They have a museum here that charges a 20 peso entrance fee. I could have skipped that, but Alfred was interested so we walked up. There’s a souvenir shop in the vicinity too. 

The Jesuit-built church at Baclayon is also known as the Church of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception. You can read about it here.

By the time we were ready to go out, the rain was pouring. They weren’t allowing vehicles to enter the parking area so our car was outside by the road. Like a boy scout, an umbrella’d Janny came to us toting two additional umbrellas – one for each of us.

The next time I visit Baclayon, I hope there’ll be more sun and we better be equipped with a better camera too. I am sure there was much to see inside the Church itself. 

On the way back to the city, we had one more stop – a souvenir shop that allegedly gave discounts. It was a bit more pricey and even with the discounts, you’re better off buying elsewhere. We did buy some of their bead bracelets and necklaces. Those were reasonably priced and they had some good designs too.

This concludes our countryside tour of Bohol. Next post will finally be on our Panglao Island experience – the beach! 🙂