After the announcement of the Puerto Princesa Underground River as one of New 7 Wonders of Nature last 2012 based from text and online votes, another travel destination in the Philippines made it to the list of the New 7 Wonders and that is the Vigan City. The fourth class city in the province of Ilocos Sur joined Beirut of Lebanon, Doha of Qatar, Durban of South Africa, Havana of Cuba, Kuala Lumpur of Malaysia and La Paz of Bolivia as the New 7 Wonders cities winners.
The announcement was made in Dubai last December 7 by Bernard Weber, Founder-President of New7Wonders. The competition started in October 2014 where 28 official finalist were named and through public vote via text and online vote it was shortlisted to 14 finalist which include Barcelona, Chicago, London, Mexico City, Perth, Quito and Reykjavik until the final 7 were announced and awarded.
Vigan City is known with a diverse Spanish inspired architecture preserved through time. With the cobblestone streets, and a unique architecture that fuses Philippine and oriental building designs and construction, with colonial European architecture it gives a nostalgic feeling of the Spanish colonial era in the Philippines.
The city is known for food like Empanada, Tableya and Bagnet. In terms of craftsmanship they are known with abel blanket, a meticulously woven cloth in Vigan that can be used as tampong or a sack to easily placed their belongings. Next are the molded products like the burnay and terra-cotta or red-clay craft. And lastly the Vigan furniture that comes in various designs that are worth bringing home. The best travel attraction of Vigan City is the ancestral houses.
Aside from the Puerto Princesa Underground River, the Vigan City is included at the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1999 because of its unique fusion of Asian building design and construction with European colonial architecture and planning.
