It is almost a month when we had our educational tour for our subject, History 23, which toured us in historical places of Batangas and Laguna. Packed with excitement to learn and to see ancestral things, I prepared my things up even before the exact date of our tour. It was on the first day of August 2012, Wednesday at 6:00 in the morning, when our journey which I called “time travel” begun. Our first itinerary was on the ancestral house of Dr. Jose Rizal in Calamba, Laguna, where our national hero was raised.
There, we saw a lot of things which really made me feel that I am travelling back on Rizal’s time because the antiques were all preserved. We took on pictures with some antique stuffs and parts of the house. After going to Rizal’s ancestral house, we then went next to his brother’s house which is in Los Banos, Laguna. There lies the tomb of General Paciano Rizal. Inside the house, the pictures of Paciano’s family was displayed in the living room. After that, we had visited Don Leon Apacible’s house in Taal, Batangas.
I was not able to take pictures in this itinerary because the battery of my camera was already emptied. Our next stop was the house of Marcella Agoncillo, who made the Philippine flag. In this house, I saw a piano in which I wanted to play with but it is restricted. We had also lectures from this house as they told us the history of the house. As we had to go to our next itinerary, we had taken pictures in front of Marcella Agoncillo’s statue in which she is holding the Philippine Flag. We also went to Casa de Segunda in Lipa City, Batangas which I admired most.
I was amazed to the structure of the house and how they preserved it. There, I saw how beautiful Segunda Katigbak is through her picture which is displayed in the house. We had also visited the Taal Basilica, the largest stone church in Asia, which is in Taal, Batangas. The church was so big and so majestic in the inside for I came to think that I was in Europe. I was also amazed with the paintings painted on the side, even to the highest ceiling of the church. We weren’t able to get inside the San Sebastian Cathedral for there was a funeral service in the church that time.
Unfortunately, we weren’t able to get inside the Caysasay Church too because we are running out of time for we are about to go home. Our tour guide told us some information about the Caysasay church and the stories behind it. From the tour guide, classmates and friends whom I shared my time with during the entire trip, I can clearly say that I enjoy doing the time travel with them. I really did enjoy my time in visiting such historical places of our country and it is indeed worth visiting for.
