I recently took a trip to Baguio to celebrate my birthday, and I traveled with my niece. It's been a few years since I traveled there last, so I searched online for places to visit. One of the places that came up was of course the nearby strawberry farms in La Trinidad.
At first I was thinking that I am not a fan of strawberries, so it might not be worth going, but in the end, we decided to give it a try. And, I have to say, I am so glad we did.
Even if one is not into picking or eating strawberries, strawberries are not the only things you'll see at the strawberry farms. There is so much more there!
First off, if you're commuting like we did, which I highly recommend to lessen the traffic congestion in the city, go to the back of Center Mall in Baguio, and at the terminal, ask the dispatchers for the jeep that goes to 'swamp'. I was told this information by a friend who lives in Baguio, because the other jeepneys that go to La Trinidad like Buyagan will only drop you off at the highway, and you'll walk inwards to the farms for around 10-15 minutes. Fare is only 14.50 pesos. The one that goes to 'Swamp' drop you off at the farms directly.
Are you ready? Let's go!
I already said I did not go for the strawberries. I went for the other things that I could see and this was one of them. It was so nice to see that there were sunflowers in the fields as well, although not a whole field, but they were scattered here and there, providing such a nice variation to the strawberry fields.
I do recommend that you go early in the morning to avoid the blazing sun, as it could get scorchingly hot as the day progresses. They open as early as 6 AM and close 7 PM. And also, they don't charge any entrance fees, which is very nice, you only ever pay when you're picking strawberries or any veggies they have for harvesting.
The fields are not owned by just one person, they are owned by different people, and the owners are beside their fields asking if you want to pick or not. For strawberry picking, the fee is 250 pesos for basket, and yes, it is more expensive than the packed strawberries that are sold at the shops on the road. You pay more for the experience, and also, they take into consideration that you may want to eat while you are picking, ha ha ha.
I loved seeing the lettuce fields, as I've never seen them in the fields before. I have only seen them in markets and grocery stores, no longer as fresh. This is a field of both Romaine and iceberg lettuce. Romaine lettuce are the ones with darker green leaves.
This is a strawberry field with just one row of lettuce on one end. So the view is like this, field upon field of either strawberries or vegetables, and you just walk around, look, harvest or do whatever you want.
This is the first time I have seen a sunflower having so many flowers in just one plant. Usually it has one, or two at the most, so I took pictures of this plant as it was very unusual for me. :-)
I did not pick strawberries, but I could not pass up picking 3 heads of lettuce for 50 pesos, seeing that they were humongous! I was so happy having done this, ha ha ha! I definitely think it was worth the money I paid for as it was very fresh and very affordable.
This was what 3 heads looked like after I cut them. Do you agree that it was worth it? If you compare it to what you buy in the market or grocery store, it definitely is, no doubt about it.
These are just small strawberry plants without fruits. So they would be ready to harvest in a couple of months, I guess.
These are broccoli plants but they don't have flowers just yet. Harvesting a broccoli cost 50 pesos per flower, but the flowers were too small for me, so I passed it up. Or should I say only the small ones were left behind, so.
I loved seeing the alternate colors in the fields- green and red and light green. Ha! Very refreshing to the eyes indeed. A nice change from all the buses and jeeps we see in the city everyday.
We went there twice, hence the different clothes. My brother and his son met up with us and since they haven't been there before as well, we took their car and went a second time.
This is another variety of lettuce, and this is usually the one they use for meat wraps in Korean barbecue restaurants when you go to eat samgyeupsal and the likes. :-) I am salivating at the thought already.
Not to forget a very nice feature of the strawberry fields- since it is the land of strawberries, they also sell strawberry flavored ice cream. And I have to say, even if I am not a strawberry girl, the ice cream was very good indeed! And the sorbeteros had signboards that say 'pang-Instagram, pang-Facebook, pang-Twitter, atbp.' Ha ha ha. They are very witty! Or should I say, they keep up with the times!
I know. Here is another field. It was just so fun to see them on the ground, where they grow. Wish I live nearby and I could just go and harvest some every other day to eat them very fresh.
First time I have seen a cauliflower in the plant itself as well. The leaves are almost the same as broccoli leaves, they are just a bit wider.
A plot of onion leeks, as they are called. One ingredient for my kimchi recipe. :-)
The blue skies, the green fields, the houses on the nearby hills make for a very pretty background for my picture, so bear with me.
The red curly lettuce variety. Good for sandwiches and salads. Yum. Just love them.
Watercress. I thought they were just good for soups before. I just learned recently that they could be stir fried and made into salads as well. They look so healthy and fresh!
This is the 50 pesos worth of broccoli. It looked too small for me, but looking back, the ones I buy are much more expensive than 50 pesos, ha ha ha!
There were also cherry tomatoes to be found in the area. They don't waste any space. They plant whatever they can plant.
What were some flowers doing among vegetable fields? And yet they were there. There were also other kinds, although not a lot.
Another plot of sunflowers. Some were big, and some were small. I took a picture of them all.
Baby Romaine lettuce plants. Not sure how long they take to grow.
There are a couple of bees on this gigantic sunflower. The other one looks like a fly.
It was a good thing it was no longer raining when we went there because our first day in Baguio was drizzly and we were supposed to go there the first day. Good thing we re-arranged our itinerary. It would have been so muddy.
I just pretended to hold the broccoli as if I was harvesting it for picture's sake.
For a fare of 14.50 pesos one way and get to see this view? I'd come here anytime. Just not during festivals or it would be so crowded.
As we were walking back to the jeepney stop, we saw this greenhouse where there are two layers, broccoli at the bottom and strawberries on the top layer. Now, that's innovative!
With my brother and my nephew, presenting to you the sunflowers! Ha ha ha!
Aside from the fields, of course there are shops that sell crafts, the by-products of strawberries, there are wines, jams, and other delicacies.
We tried two kinds of wines, but the better tasting one was the Igorota wine which was quite affordable.
Me and my brother eating ice cream- I even ordered the bigger cone, proof that I loved it!
With my brother's car at our disposal, we also went to a flower farm in a locality called Bahong, which apparently is the rose capital of the Philippines, and here we did see fields of roses.
We wanted to buy some plants but the owners were nowhere to be found. We just walked around and looked at the flowers to be seen.
Here are the fields of roses, and we also passed by workers packing the harvested roses, and here you just see field upon field of roses and other flowers. Some are accessible, some are not. We just took pictures of the ones we could.
The flowers looked nice. It was getting too sunny so we did not stay long.
It was not just roses that we saw there. There were anthuriums, hibiscus, poinsettias and many more.
And, on the way back to Baguio, we passed a village called Tam-awan Village, also known as Stobosa, which is a combined name for the three localities that make up the whole village, namely, Stonehill, Botiwtiw, and Sadjap, StoBoSa for short.
Inside the village is a set of stairs that go way up to the top, but the stairs were too much for us as it was already getting too hot, so we just took a picture and left, sadly. We were also not sure what is to be found on top so we did not want to waste our energy.
The shanties that dot the hillside used to be so boring and quite an eyesore, apparently, that the government of La Trinidad decided to turn it into a tourist attraction by painting the houses multicolored.
They partnered with Boysen paints and painted the houses like candies and voila! Its now instagrammable! And it has now become a tourist attraction. I have to say, it was a very novel idea. Korea has a tourist site like this in the city of Busan.
If you take a jeepney, just ask to be dropped off at Tam-awan. If you are coming from Baguio, it will be on the right side. There is no way you can miss the colorful houses.
So here wraps us my adventures in La Trinidad, and next I will be sharing about the places we visited while we were in the City of Pines.
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