San Remigio Church

After that “perspiring breakfast”, I thought it was time to move on to San Remigio. Oh, the Nagano folks told me via a call that some folks have reserved my room and that I needed to move to another room of the same type. I replied that I had no issues and they could just transfer my things to that new room. So I went on.

I realized most folks in the area call this town SanRem to make San Remigio shorter. My Ceres bus ride to that town was rather quick and uneventful. It is just near and next to Bogo anyway. I told the conductor, to let me off at the church or the town’s municipal hall, whichever comes first. And I was let off at the church after my twelve-peso ride.

The San Juan Nepomuceno Church
Oh that church! Unique! Unique in the sense that this is (I think) the first structure I have seen in this country where the architect seems to have played around with the bricks for whatever wondrous effect he might have envisioned hehe! Okay, the facade of the church faces the highway (and the sunrise). From there, you look at it as if square bullets had peppered the walls during some weird war of sorts. On closer look though, I noticed that some of those bricks were purposely laid out protruding a bit from the wall. And these blocks sport a darker color of just stone or mossy old brick. Thus, from afar, it looks like a dilapidating war ravaged church.

Uniquely too, there are two lions and an angel guarding the entrance to this quite interesting (if not intriguing) church. Are those lions the pets or power of their patron saint San Juan Nepomuceno? Nobody there to answer that question, so I just moved on. But which saint in the catholic faith have lions as guardians? Hmm, haven’t encountered one yet. And why only one angel at the right side of the church entrance? Shouldn’t there be two like the lions, if only to create symmetry of the design? Then again, the “other” angel might have gone somewhere for various reasons none of us might know hehe!

Hey, the front entrance doors are new! That’s a four-panel glass-door in wooden frames with artistically designed shiny metallic grills to protect the place in case those big glass slabs do break or crumble. Then upon entry, you encounter some four or five big stair-like steps fitted with handrails to get down to the pews. Oh the pews! Yep, uniquely too, while they are all made of hard wood, the ends of some are made of steel/iron material. The entire floor is of shiny wide slabs of ceramic tiles in colors that match the color theme of the entire church. Nice. Total effect, an interior that is so cozy albeit minimalist where colors from ceiling to floors to walls seem to have been labored by a fine architect.

The sides are open but grilled, that makes the church airy, BUT, the back is the front! Yeah! I had to see the back of this church since I was on my way to the “public beach”. Hmm, looking at this structure (that’s the back of the altar) I thought the original entrance of this church must have been this side. It faces the sea (and sunset, with a “front lawn” and cobbled pathway, plus there is also a cross at the apex of the roof – common to many Catholic Church frontages. Am almost sure this “was” the front. Howsoever they changed it, I wanted to ask but no one was around.

That’s the San Juan Nepomuceno Church in the town of San Remigio. The front is clean and modern, the back is green and ancient! An intriguing piece of old and modern art, really!

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