Photo: Badz Patanag (CC BY-SA 3.0)
A self-guided audio walking tour of Intramuros, the walled city of Manila, from the bayside walls north to Fort Santiago on the Pasig. It begins at the Puerta de Santa Lucia, where the city's story is told from Rajah Sulayman's Maynila and Legazpi's founding of 1571 to the walls begun in 1590 and the Battle of Manila in February 1945, which left about five percent of the buildings standing. It goes on to the excavated Baluarte de San Diego, the Puerta Real, San Agustin Church, the only major building to survive 1945, Casa Manila and Bahay Tsinoy, the museum of Chinese Filipino history. In the heart of the city come the Memorare–Manila 1945 memorial to more than 100,000 civilians killed, the San Ignacio ruins, Manila Cathedral, Plaza de Roma, the Palacio del Gobernador, the rebuilt Ayuntamiento, where the First Philippine Assembly met in 1907, and Plaza de Santo Tomas. It ends at Plaza Moriones, the gate of Fort Santiago, Plaza de Armas, the Rizal Shrine, where José Rizal spent his last days in 1896, and the Baluarte de Santa Barbara above the river.
18 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Put the guide on your home screen first, then download it from that icon while you are on wi-fi — that way you download once, and it works in airplane mode with no roaming charges. Show me the order →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap · 116 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 14 cross-referenced entries (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
Puerta de Santa Lucia, Baluarte de San Diego, Puerta Real, San Agustin Church, Casa Manila and Plaza San Luis, Bahay Tsinoy.
Memorare–Manila 1945, San Ignacio Church Ruins, Manila Cathedral, Plaza de Roma, Palacio del Gobernador, Ayuntamiento de Manila, Plaza de Santo Tomas.
Plaza Moriones, Fort Santiago and its gate, Plaza de Armas, Rizal Shrine, Baluarte de Santa Barbara.
A spade-shaped bastion built around the circular stone tower of 1586, buried after the 1863 earthquake and excavated from 1979.
The stone church of 1587 to the early 1600s, the only major building in Intramuros reported to survive the battle of 1945.
A bronze of a hooded woman holding a lifeless child, for more than 100,000 civilians killed in the Battle of Manila.
The eighth cathedral on this ground, opened in 1958, with bronze doors whose panels tell the history of its predecessors.
The city hall rebuilt in 2013, where the First Philippine Assembly convened in 1907 in the Marble Hall.
The rebuilt barracks wing where José Rizal was held before his execution in 1896, with bronze footprints marking his last walk.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 18 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each site has its own narration. 18 narration points.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Every narrated point in Intramuros — Manila's Walled City, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
18 narration points, including Baluarte de San Diego, Puerta Real, San Agustin Church, Casa Manila and Plaza San Luis and Memorare–Manila 1945. That is about 26 minutes of narration in all, and you walk between the stops at your own pace.
Yes. It plays in your phone’s browser as you walk: no guide, no group, no app to install and no fixed start time.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~1–2 hours total, but you walk at your own pace. 18 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.