Macau: The Las Vegas of the East

On my way to Hong Kong, I decided to spend a day in China’s Macau. Being a former Portuguese colony and a separately administered region that allows gambling, it has developed to the “Las Vegas of the East”. It is smoothly connected to Hong Kong (ferries run every 15 minutes and take less than an hour) and as opposed to Mainland China, many passports including the European one do not require a visa.

For sure, it is a bit absurd to see replicates of Venice and Paris in the Far East, which themselves are there to resemble Las Vegas — a copy of a copy. Where the casinos can mainly be found on the island where also the airport is, there is the Historic centre with plenty of churches igrejas, parks jardims, squares praças and the Grand Lisboa overlooking all of it.

Since I had only a day, I skipped the Casino part on the island and went straight to the Historic Centre of Macau, which has preserved its Portuguese architecture extremely well and has UNESCO World Heritage status. Walking through the streets of Macau felt like being in Lisbon and having been in Asia for so long, was a bit surreal. The views were very enjoyable, people were interesting for the cultural mix between Portuguese and Chinese and for sure, I didn't miss out on having some Pastel de Nata, Portuguese egg tart.