In 1521, Ferdinand Magellan, the Portuguese explorer in the service of the Spanish King, celebrated the first Easter Mass on Limasawa island. From this beginning, the archipelago, later named Las Islas Filipinas after Prince Felipe of Asturias, became the only Christian country in Asia. The 7,107 islands of the Philippines are blessed with numerous beaches, coral reefs and volcanoes, while its gregarious people, composed of over TOO ethnological groups, are contagiously optimistic despite centuries of political misrule. Festivals are central to Philippine culture. Visitors to Kalibo are blackened wim soot during the Ati-atihan festival, while childless couples journey to Obando to dance the fandango as a fertility rite. In this informative and practical book, Evelyn Peplow guides her readers to the best the Philippines has to offer. The book also contains a generous sampling of literature about the Philippines, including Theodore Roosevelt on the battle against Spain and James Fenton on stumbling into Ferdinand Marcos's palace sanctuary.

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