Historic Centre
The old Macau peninsula, where a Jesuit façade, a temple of 1488 and a hilltop fort share a World Heritage listing, within walking distance of the Grand Lisboa and its three-star dining room on the 43rd floor.
- Arrival
- Macau International · MFM
- To the old town
- About 7 km from the airport
- Private jets
- Macau Business Aviation Center at MFM
- Best time
- November to March
The city
Four centuries on one peninsula.
Before the casinos moved south to Cotai, Macau was this peninsula. Its old core became a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2005, twenty-two monuments and eight squares in all: Portuguese churches and a Chinese temple to the goddess of seafarers, merchants’ mansions and the fort on Guia Hill, joined by lanes paved in stone.
East of the old streets, the NAPE waterfront holds the grand hotels of the 2000s and four dining rooms with two or three MICHELIN stars. Come between November and March, when the air is dry and the walking easy. From May the rain sets in, and typhoons are most frequent in August and September.
Arriving
Across the bridges from Taipa.
Macau International lies on the eastern edge of Taipa, about seven kilometres from the old town across the harbour bridges.
- Manila 1 h 50
- Shanghai 2 h 00
- Jakarta 4 h 30
- Dubai 7 h 55 long-range jet
- Barcelona 13 h 15 long-range jet
When to go
November to March.
The cool season, from November to March, is the dry one: rain stays under 60 mm a month and afternoons reach 18 to 24 °C. Rain climbs past 280 mm in May, June and August, and the typhoon risk peaks late in the summer.
- 18° J 22
- 18° F 39
- 21° M 59
- 25° A 160
- 29° M 281
- 30° J 304
- 32° J 236
- 31° A 303
- 30° S 194
- 28° O 104
- 24° N 31
- 20° D 25
What to see and do
Days in and around Historic Centre.
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Landmark
Ruins of St. Paul’s
Sixty-eight steps up to the stone façade of a Jesuit church, all that stood after the fire of January 1835.
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Landmark
A-Ma Temple
Dedicated to the goddess of seafarers and fishermen, and built in 1488, before the Portuguese arrived.
-
Landmark
Guia Fortress
A seventeenth-century fort and chapel on the peninsula’s highest hill, with a lighthouse first lit in 1865.
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Culture
Macao Museum
Built into the hill of Monte Fort and opened in April 1998, it tells the history of Macao and its meeting of Chinese and Portuguese life.
Official site -
Culture
Macao Museum of Art
Five storeys at the Macao Cultural Centre, opened in 1999, hold the museum's own collections and galleries of traditional Chinese art.
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Culture
Mandarin's House
Two courtyard houses covering some 4,000 square metres, begun in 1869 by the father of the reformist writer Zheng Guanying, and free to visit.
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Nature
Lou Lim Ieoc Garden
A merchant's garden laid out in 1906 after the gardens of Suzhou, and a public park since 1974.
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Opera & music
Dom Pedro V Theatre
Opened in 1860 in honour of King Pedro V, this is among the first Western theatres in East Asia and still stages public events.
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Racing & sport
Macao Grand Prix Museum
Four storeys of cars and motorcycles from the Grand Prix and Guia Race, with pit garages and a race control room, reopened in 2021.
On the calendar
A date to plan around.
Dates as published by the organisers. Runways, hotels and slots fill early around these weeks: the sooner we know, the more choice you have.
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19–22 Nov 2026
Motor racing
Macau Grand Prix
73rd Macau Grand Prix on the Guia street circuit, including the FIA GT World Cup and the Macau Motorcycle Grand Prix.
Guia Circuit
In 3 weeks
Where to stay
On the peninsula’s waterfronts.
Shown for information. We have no arrangement with any of these hotels.
- Grand Lisboa A 261-metre tower opened in 2008, with Robuchon au Dôme at the top and The Eight on the second floor.
- Wynn Macau Opened in 2006 and a Forbes Five-Star hotel since 2009, with Wing Lei on the ground floor.
- Encore at Wynn Macau The all-suite tower added to Wynn Macau in 2010, with its own spa.
- MGM Macau Forbes Five-Star for the eleventh year in 2026, and home since 2024 to the Poly MGM Museum.
- Mandarin Oriental, Macau Two hundred and thirteen rooms over Nam Van Lake, and no casino.
- Sofitel Macau at Ponte 16 On Pier 16 of the Inner Harbour, looking across the water to Zhuhai, with nineteen suites in a separate mansion.
Where to dine
Stars on the old peninsula.
From the MICHELIN Guide 2026, shown for information. We have no arrangement with any of these restaurants.
- Robuchon au Dôme Three Michelin stars French contemporary $$$$ Grand Lisboa, 43rd floor
- The Eight Two Michelin stars Cantonese $$$ Grand Lisboa
- Wing Lei Two Michelin stars Cantonese $$$ Wynn Macau, NAPE
- Feng Wei Ju Two Michelin stars Hunanese and Sichuan $$ StarWorld, Avenida da Amizade
Elsewhere in Macau
More reasons to come.
Flying to Historic Centre?
Choose how you arrive.
A Business or First Class seat on a scheduled airline, or an aircraft of your own. Tell us the date and how many are travelling, and we reply with one final price, our margin included.