Churches and cuisine stretching back centuries still reflect Portugal’s legacy as Macao integrates into China.
Lilau Square looks warm and languid in the fading daylight.
Like any Portuguese plaza, time moves slowly here. Locals chat over coffee beside a kiosk. Travellers take photos beside whitewashed buildings. A couple pauses to admire the ‘calçada’, the smooth, swirling tiles found anywhere the Portuguese left a footprint.
If it weren’t for the 200-year-old banyan tree and melodic rise and fall of Cantonese in the air, you might mistake this corner of Macao for a quiet Lisbon neighbourhood.
I glance at a fountain spurting water into a shallow pool and think of an old saying about this place: anyone who drinks its water will someday return to Macao.
I’m not sure I’ve knowingly had the water from the fountain, but this is my sixth trip to the city, each a little longer than the last. Every time, I find myself drawn back into the extraordinary cultural tapestry, uncovering something new about Macao’s Portuguese past and falling for it all over again.
There may be something to that legend after all.
Macao is more than just a gaming capital
Mention Macao, and most people think of casinos. Fair or not, the city has earned its reputation as a gambling powerhouse.
In 2024, it raked in nearly €25 billion in gambling revenue – almost entirely from baccarat, the card game of choice for mainland Chinese bettors.
But long before it became Asia’s casino capital, Macao was a vital outpost in Portugal’s global empire.
Lured by its strategic location in the Pearl River Delta, the Portuguese arrived in the 16th century and the colony soon became a key trading hub.
Macao’s fortunes ebbed and flowed over the centuries. By the 1990s, it had become a city of vice dominated by Dr. Stanley Ho – ‘the godfather of gambling’ – and his casino monopoly.
After more than 400 years of colonial rule, Portugal handed Macao over to China in 1999. Beijing wasted no time reshaping the city. They even reclaimed land to merge two islands – Taipa and Coloane – creating the Cotai Strip, now home to extravagant casino-resorts.
The once-impoverished enclave rapidly transformed into one of the world’s wealthiest.
Echoes of Portugal resonate in old Macao
On a perfect January morning, a soft sun shining in a bright blue sky, I meet Mariana César de Sá for a walking tour of Macao’s UNESCO-listed historic centre.
Born and raised in Macao, César de Sá publishes ‘Macao News’, the city’s leading English-language news and lifestyle source. She takes pride in showing visitors the city beyond its cavernous casino-resorts.
We meet behind Macao’s most famous landmark, the Ruins of St. Paul’s. Only the stone facade remains of this 17th-century Catholic church, destroyed by a fire centuries earlier.
Before braving the tourist throngs gathered in front of the cathedral frame, which lords over old Macao like a gateway to the past, we slip into a neighbourhood beyond the former city walls – the Pátio do Espinho. Once a settlement for the exiled Japanese Christians who built the church, today it’s a sleepy enclave of single-storey homes.
“I like to take visitors here first. It’s full of history but also a taste of real life,” de Sá tells me.
It’s also a reminder of how far the Portuguese ventured during the Age of Discovery – how their customs, architecture and religion took root in the most distant corners of the world.
Walk through history to see the best of Macao
From the ruins, we wander through the Travessa da Paixão, ‘passion street’ – a cobblestoned alley lined with pastel-hued colonial buildings that has become a magnet for wedding photos – and walk slowly through narrow alleys to Senado Square.
When we reach the square, the city’s calçada-paved civic heart since the 16th century, de Sá gestures toward a hulking white building: the Municipal Affairs Bureau.
“It was the original city hall from the 18th century – and it’s still that today – but most people don’t realise you can go into it,” she says, stepping inside a peaceful Portuguese courtyard lined with azulejos (blue and white ceramic tiles) depicting scenes from Macao’s history.
The whole historic centre is full of secret spaces and centuries-old buildings that continue to function today. The canary-yellow St. Lawrence Church built by Jesuits still holds services. The coral-coloured Macau Military Club, once only for military men, now welcomes guests into its excellent Portuguese restaurant.