One of the notable landmarks of Bacolod City, Bacolod Public Plaza is a trapezoidal park with a belt of trees around the periphery and a gazebo at the center that was constructed in 1927. Scattered within the trees are four circular fountains. Located in the heart of the downtown area, near the city hall and across from San Sebastian Cathedral, Bacolod Public Plaza is a place for recreation, political, spiritual and cultural activities.

 

Gazebo Park

The gazebo is often used to house a bandstand and inscribed along the sides of the roof are the names of Western classical music composers Beethoven, Wagner, Haydn, and Mozart.

 

Notable Events

Bacolod Public Plaza is quite a popular site for outdoor picnics and concerts. The plaza is the heart of the MassKara Festival celebration. The MassKara Festival is a week-long celebration held each year in Bacolod City every third weekend of October nearest October 19, the city's charter anniversary. The Bacolod Public Plaza is the final destination of the MassKara street dancing competition, which is the highlight of the celebration.

 

How to get there

Negros Occidental can be reached through its capital, the highly urbanized city of Bacolod, which is 55 minutes from Manila and 30 minutes from Cebu by air. By sea, it is an 18-hour cruise from Manila and one hour aboard sea crafts from Iloilo. By land-and-sea travel, it is seven hours from Cebu. From Dumaguete City in Negros Oriental, Bacolod is 5 hours away via Mabinay in the south, and via San Carlos City in the north: 6 hours via the coastal road and 5 hours via the Translink highway in Don Salvador Benedicto.

Big and medium-sized buses, both aircon and non-aircon, ply the northern and southern parts of the province, with terminals in Bacolod. Car rental services are available for travel to any point of the island. Air-conditioned metered taxis are numerous in Bacolod, but the jeepney is still the most common means of transport among the towns and cities.