Juan Luna Shrine, Badoc Ilocos Norte

When I was planning a trip to Ilocos, I ambitiously want to visit all the places around with a DIY itinerary, unfortunately I find it hard to find one that includes Juan Luna shrine. Later I found out that it is because the route of buses passing through Badoc is quite far from the shrine, though some passes in the nearest street you strictly have to ask the bus personnel about the route.


I also thought that the last minute shifting from DIY tour to a Laoag guided tour will favor me of getting here. But I was all wrong, kuya Glenn told me that the shrine is an hour and less away from Laoag – it is the last municipality of Ilocos Norte and it is only included only when you are taking the Vigan City to Laoag City tour.

Though Laoag tour is not an option to get here, luckily we were able to drop by for a few minutes via private van. So kind of Kuya Glenn to let us join his cousin who has a car and that time is going to Vigan. Problem solved.

The travel is quite far from Laoag indeed!

 

Juan Luna Shrine is the recreation of the original two-story middle-class country home of Juan Luna y Novicio (October 23, 1857 – December 7, 1899) - a world renowned painter, sculptor and political activist. This house was burned down in 1861. The lower portion of the house showcase replicas of his works like “spolarium”, some house hold artifacts and vintage family photo.

 

That time the tour guide inside the house was really good story teller and seem to very knowledgeable. From my collective knowledge I know that Juan Luna works features Jose Rizal as a model but I don’t know if in which painting or sculpture he actually appears; the guide was able to point some of those works for me one of which is the known painting he named The Death of Cleopatra which I was astonished to know that Rizal even played as a girl lying in floor – I also find it funny.

 

Since this stop is only a favor we got from Kuya Glenn’s cousin we decided to leave in the middle of the discussion. I was actually interested to know if they are going to discuss Juan Luna’s controversial case of killing his wife and mother in law as well as the absolution of the case due to their acceptable plead for temporary insanity - severe jealousy towards a man named Monsieur Dussaq and her wife Pat (some tourist mentioned a different version of the story from the tour guides - a story quite far from the news released in Paris). That could have completed this tour. Hope we could come back for more though.