Holy Week is shaping up to be pretty different this 2020. Instead of road trips, beaches, and the annual tradition that is Visita Iglesia, people are advised to stay put at home because of COVID-19 and the enhanced community quarantine.
If you're really adamant about seeing some churches for Holy Week, it's still possible from the comfort of your living room couch—thanks to technology, of course.
You can actually use Google Maps' Street View feature to check out a number of historical churches across the Philippines with a 360-degree viewing angle a.k.a. the "photo sphere" option. It's simple to use as long as you have access to a smartphone or laptop and a stable Internet connection. Just open the app or website on your browser and drag the peg to a church of your choice. You can enter the church you want to see in the search bar.
Want to try it out? Here's a virtual tour of the Daraga Church in Albay, and here's one of the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Immaculate Concepcion in Manila. Of course, you've probably been to the The Minor Basilica and Metropolitan Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception (a.k.a. the Manila Cathedral) before but here's another way of visiting it. Neat, right?
Ideally, people would be out visiting these churches in person on Holy Week, but we don't have much of a choice this year—and a virtual tour doesn't sound so bad.
this strange new world.