Second day in Baguio City. It’s quite difficult to top our “lucky streak” during our first day. But being in some of the most interesting places in the country, there’s still so much we can do. Some of which would be a first!
This is part of a series
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Our second day in Baguio started with breakfast at Beans Talk right within City Center Hotel. Our breakfast is included with our room stay and from the six options we had tocino and corned beef, brewed coffee included. It would’ve been nice if the coffee were refillable, but I guess that’d be pushing our luck too far. I also got a slice of their crepe cake out of curiosity.
We reserved our strengths after breakfast for the long day ahead. To formally start the day’s activity, we headed towards a restaurant that I’ve not visited in a very long time: Good Taste. I don’t remember exactly what I ate the last time I was here, but I do remember it was a feast of good food! There were only two of us so we can’t exactly order a lot of viands as the serving size here is huge as well!
Our main agenda for the day: the strawberry farms of La Trinidad. Strawberries are one of the most popular produce of the province and I admit I’ve never seen the entire plant—only the fruit. The strawberry farms are conveniently around six kilometers away from Baguio City and it’s very easy and cheap to commute to the area.
The strawberry farms of La Trinidad is probably the best place to buy products made from strawberries. They have everything from candies to wine, but my favorite would be the ice cream. I’ve tasted strawberry ice cream from different commercial brands but the ones sold here are simply the best ones I’ve ever tasted!
We originally planned on doing strawberry picking which is a popular tourist activity in the area, but unfortunately we probably came in too late as all strawberries were already picked. Sad, so we just settled on buying already picked strawberries in the area. In case you’re wondering, picking strawberries would cost you ₱500/kg whereas buying picked ones only costs ₱150/kg! Of course when you pick your own strawberries you get to choose which ones you like (unlike buying per kilogram where you get whatever falls in your bag) and you’re paying for the experience since you can’t exactly do this anytime and anywhere.
Our last agenda before sundown were the Mansion and Wright Park. These popular tourist attractions are just adjacent to one another so it’s pretty convenient. It may not come as a surprise, but we actually just walked towards these sites from our hotel!
Another reason why we picked these locations is because it’s in the direction of where our dinner would be: Bliss Café located at the lobby of Hotel Elizabeth. I’ve read great reviews about this café and I won’t miss the chance of trying on their food.
Bliss Café is a vegetarian restaurant. Baguio City seems to be a haven of great vegetarian restaurants as I digest, and while Bliss Café may be a bit off the city center it’s so worthy of a visit. I honestly didn’t know what to expect when we arrived in the café, but there were so many options that there’s sure to be one for anyone, vegetarian or not (so as long as you’re not strictly looking for meat!).
One of the advantages of being a tourist during weekdays is that you avoid the crowds. I have no idea how Bliss Café fares during weekends, but during our visit we had the place all to ourselves, literally! The ambiance was quite relaxing, almost like a spa, and the interiors were pretty interesting as well with Buddha statues on each table to meet guests. Since we were the only customers at the time, it was very quiet and we were very conscious on making noise. How many times do we actually have a quiet dinner these days?
It was actually pretty early when we had dinner, just around 6PM but it felt like 8PM already as it gets really dark early in Baguio. As expected, we got hungry later on, but we didn’t bother getting far away from our hotel for our midnight snack. Since our hotel is just along Session Road, we had a lot of options, mostly fastfood that we have in Metro Manila. We chose to stick with 456 Restaurant just across the street. I think it is open 24 hours and their food is good and very affordable. I can’t say much about their bread but they do have some pretty interesting items you should try.
Day two had concluded. But there’s still one more “last hurrah!”
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Strawberry Chronicles:
- Day One
- Day Two
- Day Three
- City Center Hotel Review
- Quick Bite at Beans Talk
- Glenn 50’s Diner
- Oh My Gulay
- Bliss Café
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