At the foot of a perfect volcano — Mayon looms over everything
Legazpi is the gateway city to Mayon Volcano, the most perfectly cone-shaped volcano on Earth and the most active in the Philippines. The city sits on Albay Gulf in the Bicol region, where everything revolves around the volcano's moods — eruptions are frequent enough to be part of life, and the surrounding lava fields, black-sand beaches, and trekking routes make it one of Southeast Asia's most dramatic adventure bases. Bicolano cuisine here is some of the Philippines' most distinctive: coconut milk and labuyo chilli in everything, including the incendiary Bicol Express pork dish invented her…
The Bicol region was one of the earliest in the Philippines to be Christianised by Spanish missionaries in the 16th century, and the distinctive Bicolano culture — tied to the land, the volcano, and the sea — developed over centuries of relative isolation from Manila. Mayon Volcano has erupted over 50 times since records began; the worst eruption in 1814 buried the town of Cagsawa, whose ruined church belfry still protrudes from the lava field as one of the Philippines' most iconic photographs. Legazpi became a city in 1948 and is the commercial and transport hub of the Bicol peninsula.