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Luís De Camões Garden
Also known as Praça de Luís de Camões, This lovely garden is popular with local Chinese, who use it to 'walk' their caged songbirds or play Chinese chequers. In the centre of the park is the Camões Grotto (Gruta de Camões), which contains a 19th-century bust of the one-eyed national poet of Portugal, Luís de Camões .
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Macau Cathedral
East of Largo do Senado is the cathedral, a not particularly attractive structure consecrated in 1850 to replace an earlier one badly damaged in a typhoon. The cathedral, which was completely rebuilt in 1937, has some notable stained-glass windows and is very active during major Christian festivals and holy days in Macau.
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Macau Cultural Centre
This US US$100 -million centre is the territory's prime venue for theatre, opera and other cultural performances.
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Macau Fisherman's Wharf
Bordering the east of NAPE (pronounced 'NA-pay'), a rectangular area of reclaimed land, is Macau Fisherman's Wharf, a rather tacky 'theme park' built partially on reclaimed land. It combines attractions, hotels, shops, and restaurants, and is divided into three sections.
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Macau Museum
This wonderful museum housed in the fort tells the story of the hybrid territory of Macau through a host of multimedia exhibits.
On the 1st level, the Genesis of Macau exhibit takes you through the early history of the territory, with parallel developments in the East and the West compared and contrasted. The section devoted to the territory's religions is excellent.
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Macau Museum Of Art
This vast five-storey complex within the Macau Cultural Centre houses some excellent exhibits and permanent collections of Chinese traditional art and paintings by Western artists who lived in Macau, such as George Chinnery . There's a library with art-related titles on the ground floor.
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Macau Security Forces Museum
Housed in the 17th-century St Francis Barracks (Quartéis de São Francisco), this museum has two rooms of exhibits relating to the police and their work The building is set in the lovely St Francis Garden (Jardim de São Francisco).
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Macau Tower
Macau Tower, at 338m, is the 10th-tallest freestanding structure in the world; it stands on the narrow isthmus of land southeast of Avenida da República. The squat building at its base is the Macau Convention & Entertainment Centre.
The tower houses observation decks on the 58th and 61st floors; restaurants and bars such as the revolving 360° Café on the 60th floor; and the 180° Lounge (minimum charge MOParound MOP$100 ;;noon- ) a floor below it.
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Macau Wine Museum
This museum is a rather inert display of wine racks, barrels, presses and tools used by wine makers, as well as a rundown of Portugal's various wine regions. Some of the recent wines of the more than 1300 on display are available for tasting, which is included in the entry fee.
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Maritime Museum
Opposite the A-Ma Temple, the Maritime Museum has interesting boats and artefacts from Macau's seafaring past, a mock-up of a Hakka fishing village, and displays of the long, narrow boats that are raced during the Dragon Boat Festival in June.
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Monte Fort
On a hill and accessible by an escalator just east of the ruins of the Church of St Paul, Monte Fort was built by the Jesuits between 1617 and 1626 as part of the College of the Mother of God. Barracks and storehouses were designed to allow the fort to survive a two-year siege, but the cannons were fired only once: during the aborted attempt by the Dutch to invade Macau in 1622 .
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Museum Of Sacred Art & Crypt
This small museum behind the ruins of the Church of St Paul contains polychrome carved wooden statues, silver chalices, monstrances and oil paintings, including a copy of a 17th-century painting depicting the martyrdom of 26 Japanese Christians by crucifixion at Nagasaki in 1597.
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Museum Of Taipa & Coloane History
The museum is built on the remnants of the former Island Municipal Council and tries to be a mini-Macau Museum with a focus on Taipa and Coloane, although the collections are not nearly as good as those on Monte Fort. There is a display of excavated relics and other artefacts on the first floor that represent the earlier cultural history of Taipa and Coloane, while the second floor contains religious objects, handicrafts and architectural models.
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Museum Of The Holy House Of Mercy
Established in 1569, it is the oldest social institution in Macau, serving as a home to orphans and prostitutes in the 18th century. Today it is a two-room museum containing items related to the house, including religious artefacts; Chinese, Japanese and European porcelain; the skull of its founder and Macau's first bishop, Dom Belchior Carneiro; and a portrait of Martha Merop, an orphan who became a tycoon and a patron of the House, painted shortly before her death.
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Old Protestant Cemetery
To the east of the Casa Garden is the final resting place of many early non-Portuguese residents of Macau. As Church law forbade the burial of non-Catholics on hallowed ground, there was nowhere to inter Protestants who died here, and they were often buried clandestinely in the nearby hills. The governor finally allowed the British East India Company to establish the cemetery in 1821. A number of old graves were then transferred to the cemetery, which explains the earlier dates on some of the tombstones.
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Ox Warehouse
Near the Canidrome is the Ox Warehouse, home to a group of avant-garde artists working in a variety of media. It's also known as Old Ladies' House Art Space, where a number of installations and performances are hosted in the two exhibition halls. The lovely courtyard makes it a cheerful rest area amid the densely populated northern Macau.
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Pawnshop Museum
Housed in the former Tak Seng On (Virtue and Success) pawnshop built in 1917, the museum incorporates the fortresslike eight-storey granite tower with slotted windows where goods were stored on racks or in safes. Sharing the same building is the Cultural Club Clube Cultural; 2892 1811; www.culturalclub.net; 390 Avenida de Almeida Ribeiro; admission free; which claims to look at various aspects of everyday life in Macau but is little more than a souvenir shop.
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Penha Hill
Towering above the colonial villas along Avenida da República is Penha Hill, from where you'll get an excellent view of the central area of Macau and across the Pearl River into China. The Bishop's Palace (built in 1837) is here, as is the lovely Chapel of Our Lady of Penha (Capela de Nostra Señora da Penha; ; - ), once a place of pilgrimage for sailors.
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Pou Tai Temple
This Buddhist temple is the largest temple complex on the islands. The main hall, dedicated to the Three Precious Buddhas, contains an enormous bronze statue of Lord Gautama, and there are brightly coloured prayer pavilions and orchid greenhouses scattered around the complex. The temple also contains a popular vegetarian restaurant.
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Ruins of the Church of St Paul
The most famous sight in Macau, the façade and stairway are all that remain of this early-17th-century Jesuit church, called Tai Sam Ba in Cantonese. With its wonderful statues, portals and engravings that effectively make up a 'sermon in stone' and a Biblia pauperum (Bible of the poor), some consider the ruins to be the greatest monument to Christianity in Asia to help the illiterate understand the Passion of Christ and the lives of the saints.
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Sam Kai Vui Kun Temple
Literally 'a community hall for three streets', this temple was a meeting place for merchants then an adjudication court before the Chinese Chamber of Commerce came into existence in 1912. Also known as Kwan Tai Temple, dedicated to Kwan Yu, the god of war and justice, it gets particularly busy in May, June and July when locals celebrate three festivals in the god's honour.
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Seac Pai Van Park
At the end of Cotai, this 20-hectare park, built in the wooded hills on the western side of the island, has somewhat unkempt gardens sprouting species of plants and trees from around the world, a children's zoo, a lake with swans and other waterfowl, and a decaying walk-through aviary which contains a number of rare birds.
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Sound Of The Century Museum
Whether you are a phonograph enthusiast or not, this private museum is eye-opening. The personal collections of the owner of Tai Peng Electronics include 200 items, from antique phonographs to tournaphones and echophones dating back to as early as 1882. Prior appointment is required.
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Sun Yat Sen Memorial Home
This strangely Moorish-style memorial house pays homage to the founder of the Chinese Republic, who practised medicine in Macau for several years before turning to revolution and the overthrow of the Qing dynasty. The first memorial house blew up while being used as an explosives store, but an assortment of flags, photos and relics remain.
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Taipa House Museum
The five lime-green villas facing the water were built in 1921 by wealthy Macanese as summer residences and three of them collectively form this unusual museum. The two houses east of where Avenida da Praia meets Rua do Supico are used for receptions and special exhibitions; the three to the west house permanent collections.
