My hometown, San Antonio, is a small municipality located in Nueva Ecija making it an ideal destination whenever we want to escape the hustle and bustle of Metro Manila. We go to San Antonio regularly, especially if there are long weekends and holidays.

This year’s Holy Week is no exception. We took advantage of the long holidays to spend time with my parents in San Antonio. Since the townsfolk of San Antonio is generally conservative, the general ambiance of San Antonio is generally pensive. 

In fact, many people still adhere to age-old traditions and observations during the Holy Week. It’s the perfect opportunity for people to meditate, take things slow, and renew their faith.

While San Antonio may be a small and quiet town, it doesn’t mean that it’s a boring town. You can still do a lot of fun things in San Antonio while keeping a leisurely pace.

Here are some of the activities for you and your family:

Farm Villaronte (or Villaronte Agri-Tourism Park) is a flower farm located in Brgy. San Francisco, San Antonio, Nueva Ecija. It’s been making waves in social media in the past few years simply because of the soothing views of colorful flower fields. It’s also a popular venue for prenup shoots, unique dates, or bonding moments with your family.

We didn’t want to let the opportunity pass to visit the well-known Farm Villaronte when we were home for the Holy Week so we made plans to visit it during Black Saturday and that’s what we did. It’s best to visit Farm Villaronte in the morning, before 10 o’clock, or in the afternoon at around 4:00 PM. We chose to go to Farm Villaronte in the afternoon so that the temperature is a lot cooler.

It’s good that there’s free parking space in Farm Villaronte so you can bring your car if you wanted to. The admission fee is also fairly reasonable at P50 per head (you have to pay even for little kids).

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When we got inside Farm Villaronte, there were already a lot of visitors enjoying the view and having their pictures taken. And yes, there were at least two soon-to-be-married couples who are having their prenup photography session that afternoon.

Rafa was definitely enjoying the things that he was seeing like the telephone booth and the car. Meanwhile, Miguel was more interested to run around the farm. And like everyone else, we had our photos taken amidst the brightly-colored blooms at Farm Villaronte.

Many things have changed in the San Antonio Municipal Park over the years. What used to be a large and open public park is now a small enclosed space within the Municipal Hall complex of the town. 

Nonetheless, it’s still a popular afternoon venue for groups of youngsters and families where they can enjoy street food bought from the public market. Anyway, during our Holy Week vacation, we took Miguel and Rafa to the public park so that they can freely run in a large open space.

We were initially looking for a milk tea or coffee shop to visit but we couldn’t any that was open. We went to a commercial complex but there was no parking space inside. 

With that, we thought of just driving around the town center and just enjoy the unhurried streets of San Antonio. I thought it was a great way to reconnect with my hometown and just marvel at the old houses and simple folks walking along the roadside.

So these are some of the things that you can do if ever you get to visit my hometown, San Antonio. I’m sure there are still more things to discover in my hometown like natural wonders and historical sites. The surprises that my little hometown San Antonio holds make it an exciting place to go home to.

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