National Parks
Just beside Intramuros is Rizal Park, a 60-hectare conglomerate of gardens, historical markers, plazas, an artist’s sanctuary, a 1913 bronze monument of Jose Rizal, a grand stadium, an observatory, an open-air concert hall, a light-and-sound theatre, restaurants, food kiosks and playgrounds, with dozens of fountains. Fronting the northwest side of the park is Manila Hotel, whose lobby is one of the most imposing in the world. Along the park’s bayside, tourists can have an unobstructed view of the fabled Manila Bay sunset.
A five-minute walk from Rizal Park is the National Museum, the official keeper and guardian of the country’s cultural, historical and natural heritage. It houses the representative works of the National Artists, as well as the renowned paintings of Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo and Juan Luna. It puts on display some prehistoric finds, including the Tabon skullcap, pottery, ceramics and other artifacts from China and Indochina and remnants of pre-Hispanic boats that brought Malay immigrants to the Philippines dating to about 1250. Other establishments worth visiting in the area are the Metropolitan Theater and the National Library.
NATIONAL LIBRARY
The National Library of the Philippines (Filipino: Pambansang Aklatan ng Pilipinas, Spanish: Biblioteca Nacional de
Filipinas, formerly the National Library of the Philippine Islands and abbreviated NLP) is the official national library of the Philippines. The complex is located in Ermita on a portion of Rizal Park facing T.M. Kalaw Avenue, neighboring culturally significant buildings such as the National Archives of the Philippines and the National Historical Institute. Like its neighbors, it is under the jurisdiction of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA).
The library is notable for being the home of the original copies of the defining works of José Rizal: Noli Me Tangere, El Filibusterismo and Mi último adiós.
NATIONAL MUSEUM
The National Museum of the Filipino People is the official repository established in 1901 as a natural history and 
ethnography museum of the Philippines. It is located next to Rizal Park and near Intramuros in Manila, a component city of Metro Manila. Its main building was designed in 1918 by an American Architect, Daniel Burnham. Today, that building, the former Old Congress Building, holds the arts, natural sciences and other support divisions and the adjacent former Finance building, in the Agrifina Circle of Rizal Park, houses the Anthropology and Archaeology Divisions and is known as the The National Museum of the Filipino People. The sister institution is the National Museum of the Philippines.
