What's a good 3-day itinerary for Cebu?

Day 1 stays inside a 1.5-kilometre radius of Colon Street. Start at Magellan's Cross by 8am. The octagonal kiosk smells like candle wax and tuba palm wine from the morning's first offerings. Walk 200 metres south to the Minor Basilica of the Holy Child, where the nave fills with incense smoke and, on practice days, the deep thuds of Sinulog festival drums. The Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral sits across the plaza. Worth 10 minutes. Fort San Pedro is another 10-minute walk toward the waterfront. The triangular defense, started in 1565, is the oldest Spanish fortification in the Philippines, and entry costs 30 PHP. Lunch at Larsian BBQ near Fuente Osmeña Circle. Point at whatever looks good on the grill. Pork belly skewers run 10 to 15 PHP each, served on banana leaves alongside puso, Cebu's diamond-shaped hanging rice. By 2pm, walk to Museo Sugbo on M.J. Cuenco Avenue, opened in 2008 inside the old Provincial Detention Center. The cells-turned-galleries are cooler than the street outside. Dinner at Rico's Lechon on Acacia Street, where the roast pork's skin crackles loud enough that you hear the next table snapping pieces off theirs.

Day 2 moves uphill into Lahug. A taxi from downtown to the Cebu Taoist Temple in Beverly Hills subdivision costs about 150 PHP. The temple sits at roughly 300 metres elevation, where the air runs 2 to 3 degrees cooler than the coast. Wear shoes with grip for the steep ceremonial staircase. By 10:30am, take a habal-habal motorcycle (100 PHP) further into the Busay hills toward Sirao Flower Garden, about 20 minutes up a narrow concrete road with views over the Cebu Strait. Come back down to IT Park in Lahug for lunch. Abaca Baking Company does sourdough sandwiches at around 280 PHP. If your visit falls Thursday through Sunday, save your appetite for Sugbo Mercado's evening food stalls instead. Spend the afternoon at Ayala Center Cebu on Archbishop Reyes Avenue, where two hours of air conditioning is worth the trip when September humidity peaks past 96%. By 7pm, walk 600 metres from Ayala to Zubuchon at Crossroads Mall. Order the 500-gram lechon plate, about 400 PHP. The skin shatters between your teeth like a savoury chip.

Day 3 crosses the Marcelo Fernan Bridge to Mactan Island. The Mactan Shrine in Barangay Mactan opens by 9am, and the coral-stone ground heats up fast, so wear proper shoes. The 1981 Lapulapu Monument faces the 1866 Magellan Monument across a small plaza. Entry is free. By 11am, drive 15 minutes to the open-air seafood market in Lapu-Lapu City. Pick your fish, squid, or prawns from the ice beds, then hand them to the cook-stalls that line the road. Grilled lapu-lapu grouper runs 400 to 600 PHP per kilo, and the cooking fee is 50 to 100 PHP. The whole process takes about 40 minutes. You eat at plastic tables with vinegar dip and calamansi halves. Book a day-use pass at one of the Punta Engaño resorts for the afternoon, at 500 to 1,200 PHP per person. The water off Mactan's eastern shore stays warm and calm through September, with visibility around 8 to 10 metres on a clear day. Head back across the bridge by 5pm. The bottleneck at rush hour can add 45 minutes to a normally 20-minute crossing.

September sits deep in wet season. Afternoon downpours arrive most days between 2pm and 4pm, sometimes hard enough to flood Colon Street ankle-deep for 30 minutes. A packable rain jacket earns its luggage space. At about 63 PHP to the US dollar, food across these three days runs well under 30 USD if you eat at the places listed. Cebu City taxis still use meters with a 40 PHP flag-down, but Grab tends to be more reliable for the Mactan crossing, where some drivers refuse metered fares. Cebu's solo-traveler safety sits at 5.2 out of 10 (see the TTDI Solo-Safety Index), so keep your phone in a front pocket around Carbon Market after dark and skip Colon Street's side alleys past 10pm. That said, daytime foot traffic in the historic core is fine. The three days cover roughly 75 kilometres, about 15 on foot and the rest by taxi or Grab.