Casa Gorordo Museum, Cebu

Hi everyone! So here's another Cebu heritage that I would like to share with you, the Casa Gorordo Museum. It's one of the oldest houses in Cebu, and is now turned into a museum under the Aboitiz Foundation. It's actually the home of Cebu's first Filipino Bishop, Juan Isidro de Gorordo. It is located along Lopez Jaena Street in Colon.

The structure is kind of similar to Balay na Tisa in Carcar. It is also made of stones but of bituka tabliya (coral stone blocks) instead of tisa (limestones). Too bad it's not allowed to take pictures inside so I'm only gong to be able to show you guys photos of its garden and surrounding area.

So the house was built in 1863. Similar to the Balay na Tisa in Carcar, it is a two-story house, the second floor of which is made of wood and is still furnished with antique furniture and lots of historical collections such as books, paintings and other memorabilia. They even have actual pictures of old Colon street and Plaza Independencia, which I find really cool, mysterious and interesting!

The lower floor, called zaguan, served as a storage place. Right now, part of the zaguan is turned into an office and a small area for painting exhibitions.

As you can see from the photo below, there's a wide balcony called azotea, typical for a 19th century Spanish-inspired houses. The structure of the house is kind of elongated, where on one side are the bedrooms and the other side is the living room and then the balcony. On one end of the house (as you ascend the wide wooden stairs from the landing), is where the bedroom of Bishop Juan Isidro de Gorordo is located. Beside it is a small chapel.

On the other end is a room where they show a prototype of the kitchen. Kitchens of a typical 19th-century Spanish houses were actually separated from the main house, for safety purposes I guess.

In below photo you can see a separate house which serves as a small souvenir shop for tourists and visitors.

A cool thing about the Casa Gorordo Museum is that you can actually hold your parties there such as weddings and other special events. When we went there, a catering service going on and tourists came at lunch time to eat and I guess have a tour around the place.

Across the house is a small resting place, with a built-in brick seating area and trees that provide cool shade. We lounged there for a good 30 minutes before going home :)


I'm not quite sure but I think they're open from Mondays thru Saturdays  at 9:00 am - 12:00 nn and at 2:00 - 5:00 pm.

So that's all for my Casa Gorordo Museum post and I hope you guys like it (even though it's so short and I didn't have much photos ^^). Okay guys I'll talk to you soon!