Macau, not a high class destination, in my opinion

If you are a gambler, you might want to spend some days in Macau. But, if you are like me, you do not need more than 7-8 hours to see Macau. The boat trip over take one hour.

Macau is an administrative region of China, and like Hong Kong, you do not need a visa to travel here. After 400 hundreds years as a colony of Portugal, China got it back in 1999.

Las Vegas of the East is a very suitable nickname for Macau. Mainland China forbids gambling; therefor it is mostly Chines tourists here.

The historical part of Macau

The most interesting part is the Old Macau, which includes many historical buildings. This site now listed as World Heritage. The biggest tourist attraction is the ruins of de Sao Paulo church, a religious complex built in the 17th century, and burned down three times, now only the entrance wall still standing. I have to say the old town is nice, but it is all about tourism.

One good reason for visiting Macao is the food. The food is a combination of both Cantonese and Portuguese cuisine. These adaptations produced Macanese variations of traditional Portuguese dishes. I made a big mistake and had my lunch in a casino, and that was not a great experience. However, I went to old town and bought the famous freshly made Egg tarts. My goodness they are so nice, when they still are warm they are melting in your mouth.

Taipa

To be honest, the Casino part of Macau does not interest me much. However, having made the trip here I could not leave without seen some of it. There is so many Casinos in this city and each one try to outshine the other. At night, they fight for attention by sending out lights. I ended up going to the Venetian. It is so big, so grand, and in my opinion so tacky. It is all about spending money. The shopping mall is enormous, and in the middle, they have tried to reconstruct parts of Venice, with squares, canals and even gondoliers singeing opera, I was not too impressed. I spent 30 minutes to find the exit, and had to ask three guards to find the way out of there.

My conclusion is that if I just had a few days in Hong Kong I would not prioritize going to Macau, even though it is an interesting place. For me the only reason to go back, is those Egg Tarts.