Intramuros (Spanish for "in the walls") is the walled fortress city surrounded by moats, from within which for three hundred years the Spanish ruled the Philippines.
The massive stone walls of Intramuros were 4.5 kilometers long. They contained well-planned streets, and twelve churches, plus monasteries, convents, palaces, government buildings, hospitals, schools, a university, a printing press, and barracks. There were also elegant houses for the rich.
Dozens of cannons protected Intramuros, and only Spaniards and Spanish mestizos were allowed to live inside.
World War Two reduced much of Intramuros to rubble. Only a few buildings survived such as the San Agustin Church and the Augustinian monastery; but a comprehensive rebuilding program has been undertaken during which the Manila Cathedral has been rebuilt and two of the original seven city gates, Puerta Isabel II and Puerta Real, have been restored.
A visit to Intramuros will give a feeling of the antiquity of this old capital city, and of the power of the now vanished Spanish empire.
