Abra  is surrounded by mountains. There is beautiful scenery in so many places on the countryside: rivers, mountain peaks, beautiful old trees, fresh water springs, rice paddies. Once you get out of the municipalities there are vast empty spaces.

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The Calaba river bed is large, the Bangued bridge is 900m long. During a typhoon it will fill with water and be like a large sea flowing toward the ocean. Before the bridge was completed in 2010, people had to take bamboo rafts and other boats to get to the other side. Life was very different then.

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The Apao Rolling hills are a series of hills in a wilderness about 50km north of Bangued in the Municipality of Tineg. We visited them late in the day and caught them in the golden light of a beautiful sunset. They will look very different during the rainy season, when the grasses are green.

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Pine trees appear to be exotic to many people living in hot tropical countries. Just an hour drive away from  Strutz Art Garden Resort you can find pine trees: take the road to Nagaparan and then further up the road to Dadamuen View Deck. The View Deck gives a wide panoramic view over the mountain ranges. Here, many pine trees are growing, a surprising sight.

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Sometimes we can still discover a bahay kubo. This is a traditional house made of bamboo, wood and nipa grass, the roof being covered with grass or palm leaves. As romantic as they look, people like to upgrade them to more modern dwellings, so they are getting rare. Yet, sometimes new houses or shelters are built in the style of a bahay kubo.​​