CAVITE DIARIES: Church Pilgrimage: Coastal Circuit (4.15.2022)
On the image: I was particularly inspired to make this flyer like image from Canva. It looked nice in my own standards. Maybe I'll do it when we try to do the other circuits too!
As you know Reagan and I have acquired a house last year and I can't for the life of me imagine leaving our home for more than a day with no one to take care of it. I was convincing my sisters to babysit the house but they couldn't leave our million dogs. So basically we didn't plan anything for the long weekend last Holy Week and at the same time it's still the pandemic. BUT, youngest suggested to do a pilgrimage of sorts in spite of us not being Roman Catholics. We collectively just love going to old churches so why not.
From the Cavite FB page there are 3 circuits, coastal, upper and midland. Upper is probably the worst option because of, well...Tagaytay, Midland is ... meh, we're already at midland, so we went with the coastal circuit instead. Being our place of residence is much more closer to Kawit in a sense, we decided to start backwards: Ternate all the way to Tanza.
We started off strong, it was a nice church but a weird navigation made us initially park at the back of the church. It was also coastal all right. We can glimpse the waters just around the corner. Reagan had to grab the car and take our vehicle closer. We're also supposed to have our breakfast at Lolo Claro's but they're closed, which is basically everything else are. No museums nor proper restaurants are open during the holy week so we had to make by with just visiting the churches and having a very late lunch around Rosario I think.
We can see some groups church hopping as well, we kept on seeing the same faces come in too. It's also odd that everybody has dogs with them. Maybe they can't leave them at home? Probably my only regret is not doing it earlier because my sister overheard someone said that they've already done 9 churches and we're not yet halfway through at that point.
Parking is another issue. Some have dedicated areas, but gets full fast (#3 Immaculate Concepcion) and one of them (#6 Porta Vaga) is a bit of a hazard since they're currently renovating and the church and worse is, it's right next to a (I think, a main) road. It would have been amazing if they preserved a large lot around it because it's probably the highest belfry I've seen in this tour. It towers even before you come close to it. Would have been dramatic. Not to mention since the church is tall, it's challenging to even take a decent photo while you try to squeeze yourself in between a pedestrian barrier and being hit by a car.
Not part of the tour but we found it just as we've done #6 was the Samonte Park. It's right next to a coast and I'm envious of the houses near it. They have a park and boulevard they can go to just to breathe in fresh air. There are also some weird trees with fruits we have no idea what they're for. No one's harvesting it but the trees kept on producing these weird mutant mango like fruits they just allow to drop and rot.
It took almost half of my life and it was the first time I've toured around Cavite, and most especially visit Freedom Park where everybody else has been to. We'd probably tour again but on a different date perhaps so that we'd be able to try out the foods and places that were closed during the Holy Week. I wonder why the Cavite Tourism Board (if there's any) hasn't made like a stamp like passport for visiting the churches because I never thought that Cavite have a lot of them really old ones that are still standing today. My favorite being the last one because out of everything else-- #7 Saint Mary Magdalene, it has a spacious parking and the interior is really well kept. It's also very quiet unlike the rest. I mean if I'm going to be wed on a church and if it's not of a bother I would have loved it to be there.
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