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Cebu City is defined at its northern limit by Fuente Osmena , the large traffic roundabout at the far end of Osmena Boulevard. There are hotels, restaurants, fruit stalls and department stores here, and at night it's the place to be for roller skaters and promenaders. At the other end of Osmena Boulevard - the southern end near the coast - is the city's mercantile heart, with banks, airline offices and yet more department stores. Osmena Boulevard is the city's major artery and if you don't fancy the twenty-minute walk from one end to the other, you can always take a jeepney (P10).

The city's spiritual heart is a small crypt opposite the town hall that houses the Cross of Magellan . It's actually a modern hollow cross that is said to contain fragments of the original brought by the famous conquistador in 1521 and used in the first conversions of locals to Christianity. Next to the cross on Osmena Boulevard is the dusty and towering Basilica del Santo Nino where vendors with tawdry religious icons and amulets offer cures from everything from poverty to infertility. Inside the basilica, built 1735-37, is probably the most famous religious icon in the Philippines, a statue of the Santo Nino (child Christ), said to have been presented to Queen Juana of Cebu by Magellan after her baptism in 1521. The next conquistador, Miguel Lopez de Legaspi, arrived in 1565 and built Fort San Pedro , near the port area at the end of Quezon Boulevard, whose shaded garden is today one of the quietest spots in Cebu, away from the choking din of the city centre. For intense local colour and sensory overload take a walk down Carbon Street , said to be the oldest street in the country, or struggle through the sweat and bustle of Carbon Market , off Magellanes Street, where the range of goods on offer, edible and otherwise, will leave you reeling. A twenty-minute taxi ride from the city takes you to the hills above the city where the Taoist Temple and immense houses are testament to the influence and wealth of the Cebuano Chinese, whose forefathers arrived from eastern China as early as the sixteenth century to trade in silks, porcelain and spices.