China; Sunday, 05 April, 2026

I had a decent night sleep, and was wide awake before 7am, though the gap in the curtains may have had something to do with that. It did mean, though, that I was able to head down to breakfast ahead of the rush – and from the pages of printed out rooms with breakfast paid for on the hostess stand – I was right to get down early.

I had intended on heading straight out after breakfast to get ahead of the crowds, with Macau being a popular weekend break spot for this part of the world, but a passing hefty shower made me decide it was probably best to hang on a little while, so by the time I did head out it was already quite busy in the centre of the city – in fact the crowds felt even busier than in Kyoto and Tokyo the previous easter.

First stop of the morning was the old town of Macau, home to many of the colonial buildings dating back to when the Portuguese were in charge, and standing in Senado Square, if you ignored the oppressive humidity, you could easily believe that you were in a part of Lisbon, Porto, Funchal or Ponta Delgada with the white stone mosaic pavements and the buildings all looking like they had just been dropped in from Iberia.

From Senado Square I wandered through the very heavily crowded streets and up to the cathedral, arriving just as the Easter Sunday service was starting, so thought it probably wasn’t the best time to have a look around there, instead I had a little wander around the area and then headed over to the main sight of the city centre, the ruins of the 17th century Church and College of St Pauls. Today only the front façade of the church survives, the rest of the building having been destroyed in a fire following a typhoon on 26th January 1835. Given it’s one of the main sights of the city it was also one of the busiest with the crowds of tourists being almost overwhelming.

After looking round what I could of the church ruins, including the small museum dedicated to sacred art in the former crypt of the church, I headed back outside and over to the neighbouring Monte Fort, located on the highest point in this part of the city centre. The fort today houses the Museu Macau, dedicated to the history of the city, which I spent quite a bit of time looking around in part as it was interesting, but also because it wasn’t anywhere near as busy as the rest of the city and the air-conditioning was set to just right.

Having taken in the fort and the museum I headed back down into the centre of town to grab a late lunch, which I was able to do – clearly everyone was eating much earlier than 2pm – before going for a bit more of a wander around the city centre. I then caught the bus back out to Cotai as I went to explore more of the strip, with the intention of also taking in the Skycar cable car at the Wynn Resort, though when I got there the queue was at least an hour long so I decided to drop that idea and after a bit more of an explore I headed back into the city centre.

With night having fallen and most of the day and weekend trippers gone the city centre was much more relaxed and whilst there were still a large number of people milling around it wasn’t anywhere near the crazy numbers for earlier, so I was able to have a wander around the city centre again and take in both the ruins of St Pauls, the outside of the fortress and Senado square without fighting for space.

As it was getting quite late I had to wander quite a bit before I found a restaurant that was still open, but it turned out to be a really good dinner and then not too much of a walk back to the hotel for a quick pre-sleep shower to remove the effects of the days humidity and then to bed.