Manila began inside these walls. For more than three centuries Intramuros, the walled city, was the seat of Spain's rule over the Philippines, a grid of churches, convents and mansions guarded by stone bastions on the bank of the Pasig River. This walk starts at Fort Santiago at the river mouth, runs the length of the old city past the cathedral and the oldest stone church in the country, leaves by the southern bastion, then crosses Rizal Park to the monument to the national hero and the grand museum buildings on the park's eastern side. It is about four kilometers and flat all the way, and among the most rewarding self-guided walking tours in Asia if you want to understand how the Philippines came to be.

Before you set off

The walking takes under an hour, but give it at least half a day, because Fort Santiago, the San Agustin museum and the National Museum could each fill a morning on their own. Manila is hot and humid all year, and from roughly June to October it is also wet, with heavy afternoon downpours and the occasional typhoon. Start early, carry water, a hat and an umbrella, and use the churches and museums as places to cool off. Intramuros has quiet streets and some shade, but the stretch through Rizal Park is open lawn and paving, so try to cross it before the midday sun. The fort and San Agustin charge for entry, and the national museums at the end of the walk have not charged general admission in recent years; entry rules and hours change, so check before you go. All along the route, drivers of pedicabs and horse-drawn carriages called kalesas will offer you rides, and a polite no is enough. Churches are places of worship first, so cover shoulders and knees and keep quiet if a wedding or a Mass is under way, which on weekends it often is. Rizal Park gets crowded on weekends and holidays, so keep your phone and bag close there.

Fort Santiago

Stand inside the main gate of Fort Santiago and look back at it: above the arch, a carved relief shows Saint James, Santiago, on horseback, the patron saint of Spain and the fort's namesake. Beyond the walls flows the Pasig River, and this spot at its mouth is where Manila's story begins. Before the Spanish came, a fortified settlement called Maynila stood here, ruled by Rajah Sulayman and tied by trade and marriage to the sultanate of Brunei. The name comes from nilad, a mangrove shrub that grew along the shore. In 1570 a Spanish force attacked and burned the settlement, and in 1571 Miguel López de Legazpi, who had come north from Cebu, founded the Spanish city of Manila on its ashes and made it the capital of the colony. A fort of logs went up first, then this one in stone in the 1590s, guarding the river and the walled city behind it. The fort's most famous prisoner was José Rizal. He was held here at the end of 1896, tried for rebellion and condemned, and on his last night he wrote his farewell poem, Mi último adiós, and hid it in a small lamp that was handed to his family. Bronze footprints set into the ground trace his final walk out of the fort, and a museum in the building where he was held tells his story. The fort's dungeons hold darker memories as well, from the Japanese occupation, when the military police held and killed prisoners here. When you are ready, walk back out through the gate and follow General Luna Street south-east. In about six minutes the cathedral rises on your left, facing Plaza de Roma.

Manila Cathedral

A path in Intramuros Across Plaza de Roma stands Manila Cathedral, its stone facade lined with statues of saints and a green dome rising behind. It is the eighth cathedral on this site. The first, built of wood and thatch after Manila became a diocese in 1579, burned within a few years; its successors were brought down by typhoon, fire, earthquakes, and finally the battle of 1945, and the building you see was completed in 1958. In the middle of the plaza stands a statue of King Charles IV of Spain, put up in thanks for the smallpox vaccine that a royal expedition carried across the world to these islands in the early 1800s. This square was the heart of the Spanish colony. Around it stood the governor's palace, the city hall and the cathedral, and much of the wealth that paid for them came from the sea. From 1565 until 1815, the Manila galleons sailed between here and Acapulco in Mexico, usually one or two a year. They carried Chinese silk, porcelain and spices east across the Pacific and came back loaded with Mexican silver, which China wanted above all else. Chinese junks unloaded their cargoes at Manila, merchants inside the walls bought space in the galleons' holds, and for two and a half centuries this small walled city was the hinge between Asia and the Americas. Step inside the cathedral if it is open, for the stained glass and the cool. Then continue south-east along General Luna Street for about five minutes to San Agustin Church, on the corner with Calle Real.

San Agustin Church

San Agustin Church does not look like much from outside, a plain, heavy facade behind a gate guarded by carved granite lions in the Chinese style, but it is the oldest stone church in the Philippines, finished in 1607 by the Augustinian friars, the first order to arrive with Legazpi. It has outlived everything around it. Earthquakes brought down the city's other churches again and again, and San Agustin's thick walls rode them out. Inside, the ceiling looks carved and coffered, but it is flat, painted in trompe l'oeil by two Italian artists in the nineteenth century, and Legazpi himself is buried here. Together with three Spanish-era churches in the provinces, it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This is also the place to remember February 1945. When American and Filipino forces came to take Manila back from the Japanese, the Japanese troops holding the city refused to withdraw. For a month the battle went street by street, and in its last weeks it reached these walls. Japanese troops massacred civilians across the city, and people who had sheltered in this church and its monastery were among those killed. American artillery, firing to break into the walled city, flattened much of what was left. By early March an estimated 100,000 civilians were dead, and Intramuros lay in ruins. Of its seven churches, only San Agustin was left standing. The monastery next door is now a museum, and its cloisters are among the most peaceful places in Manila. On a small plaza nearby, a sculpture called Memorare Manila 1945 remembers the civilians who died. Continue south along General Luna Street toward the end of the walled city, then follow the walls a short way to the garden of the round bastion, about six minutes.