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Top Ten Tagaytay Destinations
You know you are in Tagaytay the moment you see those ubiquitous hawkers along the road selling orchids and ornamentals, buko pie, and señorita bananas and other exotic fruits. You know it's time to turn the rollers of the car window down to let in some pine-scented Tagaytay freshness to replace the stale, artificially lemon-scented air inside. There's so much to do in this place that you know you just have to visit it again and again. Here are our Top 10 recommendations. 10. Ilog ni Maria Honeybee Farm After navigating a longish dirt road past a coffee plantation, you are suddenly transported to a 10-hectare farm bordered by a river called Ilog ni Maria, which flows from seven natural springs. (Strictly speaking, this private property is located in the highlands of Silang, Cavite.) Your arrival here may not be met with much excitement, as Lito and Violane Magsaysay and their crew most likely have their hands full with farm work. The ambience of the place is not as picturesque as you may have imagined, but it sure holds its own charm. The farm only gives tours to 50 visitors or more, and the tour has to be reserved in advance because they need to set up the museum for an educational film showing on apiculture and apitherapy. The 'museum' is a giant dark brown hive with mock honeycombs. Avoid wearing colorful attire shirt, as you could be mistaken by the drones for a giant rose petal and be strip-searched for some sweets. However, the bees – the comparably small-sized Italian honeybees (Apis mellifera), to be exact – are visitor-friendly, even to obtrusive city-dwellers, with their scent of three-in-one shampoo, menthol cigarettes, and cologne. Havaianas are not recommended. The terrain is grassy and slightly sloping, but thankfully neither muddy nor smelly. The furry propolis-laden insects are everywhere, as are the nectar-laden montane flowers, their favorite food source. White hive boxes dot the farm in neat rows, and the bees aggregate in their respective hives like families in a neighborhood. It's amazing how each bee remembers which box to come home to at the end of each flight. The creatures are just like people. There is a noticeable lack of plastics and synthetic chemicals in this place that one can almost read the words "sustainable environment" in every corner. For Christmas shoppers, the store should be the main attraction here, an eye-popping trove of organic products from the bee farm. A side trip to this bee farm makes the idea of any lovers' Tagaytay honeymoon truly literal. 9. Tagaytay Picnic Grove You can have a picnic with the family (with minimal fees) near the Taal Vista Lodge with Taal Volcano as backdrop. One time, my cousins and I brought here just a humble feast of bananas, "tasty" bread and deviled liver spread, but we were very happy. It was a bit foggy, so our volcanic backdrop looked like a surreal stage prop, if not a carpet wall hanging, with the deceptively diminutive volcano rendered in an impressionistic manner. Note how the volcano's size is very well representative of almost everything native to the Philippines: reduced in scale, making it more unique and, in the case of food (peanuts, guavas, chickens, eggs, and yes, pineapples), more fully packed with taste. 8. Horseback-riding on the pineapple farm trail Take a horseback ride in any of the horseback-riding places and get to pick farm-fresh pineapples along the horseback trail. Haggling for a horse ride can be a hassle, what with 10 or so 'horsemen' swarming you with competing offers, so it's good to decide fast whose horse of which guide you want to have. The hooves you rent will clip-clop down a village, until you are led to a little pineapple plantation down the hill. Groin discomfort notwithstanding, you feel the old-world charm of it as you savor the balmy, sunny, hilly atmosphere. The guides will hand you freshly picked pineapple each as a prize on your way back. Your equine adventure can be summed up with the slogan: "Ride a horse, win a pineapple." Neat. 7. Gourmet restaurants Tagaytay is a foodie's paradise. Go on a gourmet adventure at Gourmet Café, Sonya's Garden (vegan), Antonio's (rated as the country's best fine-dining resto), Hawaiian Bar-B-Q, Pamana, etc. Each of these dining places is really worth a separate trip. 6. Pasalubong shopping Shop for pasalubong for the best buko pie, ube halaya, espasol, etc. in town in Colette's and other stores near the bus station. Shop for fresh tropical fruits along the many fruit stands dotting the Aguinaldo Highway. You can't miss them. A word about the pineapples: It's easy to dismiss Tagaytay's pineapples as rejects, what with their unappetizing size (slightly larger than your fist) and all. But when you get to taste a sugary sliver of the dwarf variety, you immediately get converted. Talk about 'Don't judge a book by its cover' and 'Things are not always what they seem.' 5. People's Park in the Sky Spend a laid-back afternoon by clambering on foot the Palace in the Sky, which was reportedly built by then President Marcos for US President Ronald Reagan's visit. There's a parking area at the foot of the mountain, for those who bring a car. The air here can get cooler and cooler as the afternoon winds down, but be prepared to be exhilarated by a view you didn't know existed. 4. Religious retreat Pursue inner peace at any of the numerous spiritual retreat houses such as the Divine Word Seminary (SVD). SVD's sprawling ground is a Christmassy forest of aracauria trees with well-maintained pocket gardens that will suit your Alleluias. 3. Volcano-gazing at Taal Vista Lodge Stop by Taal Vista Lodge, which we gather to be the best place in Tagaytay to view the world's smallest volcano, Taal Volcano ("a crater within a crater") -- for free. No, you need not check in at the hotel; you just have to park yourself at the view deck to have a great vantage point. Trust me -- you'll never have enough of the lovely sight. Expect to be greeted by lots of PDAs ('public displays of affection') taunting the biting-cold wind with the lovers' ever-tightening grip. Pretend not to see anything and to deflect your fast-gathering envy, in case your partner is nonexistent or nowhere in sight. There are fastfood restaurants nearby as well, in case hunger pangs attack. Expect to find friendly bees buzzing around instead of some other icky insects. 2. Taal Lake Taal Lake is veritably Lake Placid, and the hovering fog makes it even more so. Take a boat ride on this "lake within an island within a lake." In the fishing and farming Shangri-la surrounding the lake (this is where they farm the indigenous tawilis fish), you can spend time either in relative quietude or embraced by someone. But, if you want, they also offer horseback-riding around the vicinity of the volcano itself. 1. Tagaytay Highlands This private wonderland south of the Metro puts the wow in "Wow Philippines." The bad news is this place, definitely the best place in Tagaytay, is exclusive to its 300 club members. The good news is, it is absolutely exclusive that the beauty of the place has been preserved well. (After all, the sheltering effect of exclusivity is the selling point.) If you want to see for yourself what mucho dinero can do, hitch a ride with one of the 'executive members' of this hideaway and you'll see what the buzz is all about. Simply put, 'world-class' is written all over the place. Trundling up and down the steep winding inclines (with the car aircon off) gives a heady feeling. Have some late lunch in their steakhouse, which is a sturdy log cabin -- not the least faux, but the real thing: roof of pine cedar logs held together by wood joinery, with not a single nail used, etc. Even the john is a squeaky-clean room that oozes with that 'privileged' feel, the sour-sweet scent of cedar unmistakable. All the materials used in this restaurant are reportedly imported. There's a chandelier of beautifully arranged stag horns hanging above. Several preserved busts of wild game - sanbar deer, hartebeest, mountain goat, and other exotic and exquisitely horned inhabitant of the American woodland - are mounted on the fragrant walls, making for interesting conversation pieces. You start with a platter of assorted breads, followed by thick, rich pumpkin soup. Next, try their mesclun salad in vinaigrette or Caesar's salad in thousand island dressing. Then have a choice between steaks of prime beef (New York or ribeye) or pink salmon. For dessert, you can share little plates of crème brulee and blueberry cheesecake. At the Midlands Golf Clubhouse, noisy foreign golfers congregate. Check out the Country Club, then proceed to the Veranda, a Japanese-inspired structure mixed with Balinese bric-a-bracs. Here, you can have coffee or hot chocolate. Turn slime-green with envy as you gaze upon Lucio Tan's luxurious log cabin across the horizon. This cabin is nestled just a little below a neat row of Swiss chalets, each valued at God knows how much (Php25M upwards?). Overlooking the Veranda is a pagoda-inspired Chinese restaurant, which is said to serve a most sumptuous chop suey. The air can be nippy, and if it doesn't turn windy, try the cable car and funicular rail. If you are afraid of heights, you can settle with admiring the countless birds (blue-black swallows) flying against the sweep of the gale-force wind. Their nesting grounds -- untouched rock formations pockmarked with holes -- can be seen, just one of the surprising features of a high-maintenance place like this. Lastly, have cocktails at The Peak before you exclaim, "What a swell place!" |
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