Experience the best of Negros

Negros is the fourth-largest island in the Philippines, lying between Panay and Cebu in the Visayas, with a mountain spine running down its length. The western half, Negros Occidental, was the country's sugar heartland and is dotted with plantation houses, and Bacolod, its capital, is a city of plazas and a long seafront. The eastern half, Negros Oriental, faces Cebu and Siquijor across the sea.

Silay has preserved ancestral houses, and the ruins of a sugar baron's mansion near Talisay recall the sugar boom. Mount Kanlaon, a volcano, is the island's high point and sits in a national park of forest and waterfalls, and the Twin Lakes of Balinsasayao and Danao lie in the hills inland of Dumaguete. Dumaguete, a university city with a seaside promenade, is the base for boats to Apo Island, a marine sanctuary where turtles feed over the reef.

Chicken inasal, chicken grilled with lemongrass and annatto oil, comes from Bacolod, as does piaya, a flat pastry filled with muscovado sugar. The MassKara Festival, with dancers in smiling masks, fills the streets of Bacolod each October. The weather is warm every month, drier in the first part of the year.