It is a must, in my opinion, to visit Macau whenever one decides to explore Hong Kong. I would always tell my friends to make it a point to drop by Macau. Allow at least a day to visit this small and lively country, gambler or not, which is just an hour ferry from Hong Kong. The round-trip ferry ticket costs around 300 HKD. If you are early, you might get a really good deal.
Places Visited
October 19, 2016
Wynn Hotel and The Venetian Macao
I’d say that our timing was not perfect since we visited during the rainy season but it was overall manageable. We went to the ferry station early in the morning before 7 AM in spite of rains. Unexpectedly, we really got a good deal with just 300 HKD for return tickets instead of 171 HKD one-way.
However, the price came with something else – stormy seas. Well, I’m sure the ticket and the weather were not related. I was just making some silly connection. Anyway, the crew had to warn us about a bumpy ride ahead. Thankfully, we survived the more-than-an-hour ride with slight uneasiness.
Wynn Hotel and The Venetian Macao
The best thing about Macau is that you don’t have to spend any single cent for transportation. The casino buses are free! From the terminal, we couldn’t find the bus that goes straight to The Venetian Macao so we took the casino bus to Wynn Palace instead, which was also on Taipa island.
We explored around the newly built Wynn Palace (the first one is on the Macau mainland) and there weren’t too many people yet so we were able to enjoy our mansion-for-a-day.
Half-hour was enough for us just to see how Wynn Palace looked inside. Then we hunted the bus to The Venetian Macao. Unfortunately, since Wynn was not that fully open yet, there were no available buses from Wynn! We tried walking outside looking for any bus while soaking ourselves up in the rain since our umbrella was broken by the wind but to no avail. We ended up taking the taxi to The Venetian Macao which costed us 50 MOP. It was 10 AM then.
Macau boasts its largest casino resort in the world which was modeled on its sister The Venetian Las Vegas. We had our lunch here and roamed around and around San Luca canal before heading back to mainland Macau.
Senado Square
Around 1 PM, we boarded the Hotel Lisboa bus that would bring us to the central area of mainland Macau. Our next target was to feel the old Portuguese area, mainly the Senado Square and the things around it including ruins, old buildings, egg tarts, cookies, and the fort.
It was a bit of a walk from Casino Balboa to Senado Square, maybe around 10 minutes, more or less. It was a good walk around the city to see what made Macau busy.
Though the skies were dark, Senado Square wasn’t bothered by it. Everything seemed to be as usual. People were still fascinated by the architecture around them. Like us, we took photos of almost every angle of the landmark.
From the Senado Square, we had to walk through a busy alley of cookies, tarts, and souvenir shops that would lead us to what’s left of St. Paul. The spot of the Church of St. Dominic signaled the start of the alley.
Ruins of St. Paul
Monte Fort
Just beside the ruins is where the fort, Monte Fort, is located that offers a good view of the small, busy city. It was easy to get from one place to another.
After we completed walking around the perimeter of the fort, we headed back down the same way towards Senado Square. There were still a lot of people taking snapshots with the Ruins of St. Paul, making it one of Macau’s best known landmarks.
The Fisherman’s Wharf
There was one more stop before we ended our Macau trip. We needed to enjoy the breeze from The Fisherman’s Wharf and we got more than what we asked for – strong breeze by the shore.
We had dinner at Talay Thai Restaurant along the shore and did a final stroll before heading to the Macau Ferry Terminal for our 7:30 PM trip back to Hong Kong.
We were able to achieve the main goal of seeing Macau’s highlights in spite of a wet day. We just admired the architecture of casino buildings because we don’t gamble. And so, that concluded our 1-day Macau trip.
