Cebu

© Felix Hug Lonely Planet.

In spite of the city's maritime beginnings, its centre has shifted decisively inland. Locals now refer to the newer precinct around Fuente Osmena as 'uptown' and the older district around Colon St (the oldest street in the country) as 'downtown'. Uptown and downtown have such completely different characters as to almost seem different cities: basically, downtown is older, dirtier, more impoverished and more vice-strewn than uptown. Longtime residents of Cebu City will admit to have never gone downtown, and will profess no desire to ever visit.

But it doesn't end there. In recent years the area northeast of uptown, around the Cebu Business Park and Ayala Center, has become like a new uptown, exerting a similar gravitational effect on hotels and businesses that Fuente Osmena once did. It's greener and more open than Fuente Osmena, has the best mall, the best business facilities and some of the best hotels, and isn't so blighted by girlie bars as Fuente Osmena. If you like a bit of quiet, it's a good place to base yourself.

In the northern hills beyond the uptown area is the flash district of Lahug, where the Waterfront Hotel & Casino exerts a similar influence on its surrounds to the Ayala Center.

Cebu City has a long history of changing its street names, with many of the old names living on, either in the minds of taxi drivers or on street signs yet to be removed. If you find yourself squinting up at a street sign with black lettering on a yellow background, it's an old sign - and the name may have since changed. Up-to-date signs are those with white, or reflective, lettering on a bright green background. There are also many streets, avenues, drives and boulevards using the same name, such as Osmena, or Ramos - often all that differentiates them is a first name or initial (eg J Osmena St, S Osmena St).