Welcome to Macau, the city known as the Chinese Las Vegas. The mixture of East and West culture makes this city an attractive traveling destination. It is located 40 km away from Hong Kong. Macau was the first and the last European colony when the Portuguese settled back in the 16 century.
Even though it’s no longer a colony, the presence of the Portuguese culture is evident, as the official language in the city is Portuguese. The city consists of four areas, which include the Macau Peninsula, the Taipa and Coloane islands, and Cotai.
The latter is a home for many of the newly built casino resorts that we will be talking about. So, if you’re looking to visit Macau or you’re wondering what you can do there, in this article, we have compiled some interesting facts and sights that you need to visit.
Sights
As previously said, Macau is a unique place to visit, thanks to its history and the combination of Chinese landmarks and Portuguese heritage. The city is a UNESCO World Heritage center. There are many historical places to visit. Largo de Senado is the city’s main square, paved with typical Portuguese mosaic patterns.
Santa Casa da Misericórdia, the city’s main church, it’s worth visiting because of the religious artifacts. Another cathedral is the São Domingo, one of the oldest churches in the town, which dates back to the 17th century. Monte Fort or Fortaleza do Monte is a stone fortress that was built in the 1660s. The Macau Museum has many relevant exhibitions with history-inspired illustrations.
Gambling
Macau is considered to be the gaming center of Asia. An interesting statistic says that 20% of the population of this city works in casinos. However, with the increasing popularity of casino sites, more and more people gamble online. The advantage is not leaving the comfort of your home while still enjoying an immersive gambling experience.
In fact, online casinos provide hundreds of high-quality casino games, including craps, slots, poker blackjack, in many variations, and many other casino games. They’re able to instantly add new modern titles because they operate digitally. For example, in case you want to try your luck with roulette, you be able to access a wide selection of roulette games on the online casino.
To add to this, their popularity is almost certainly going to rise because most casinos are also available on a mobile device; therefore, you can access and actually play any casino game you want whenever it’s convenient for you. But this doesn’t mean that the land-based casinos here aren’t remarkable. Far from it, actually, you may still want to visit some of the land-based casinos while you are there.
It’s worth mentioning that the casino resorts here have gained worldwide attention due to their lavish premises, premium service, and a huge number of casino games. Although, the majority of gamblers come from Hong Kong and mainland China. The most popular casino resorts are Venetian Macau Limited, Wynn Palace, and Grand Lisboa, which are certainly attractive with their Vegas-style-looking palaces.
Cuisine
If you want to try traditional cuisine, go to some of the local restaurants and cafes. Macau cuisine is a blend of Portuguese and Chinese flavors. Some restaurants, such as Lotiroal, Carlos, and APOMAC Macau, have authentic Macau meals to offer. On the other hand, you can find many Chinese and Portuguese restaurants in the city.
It’s a relatively safe touristic destination with low crime evidence. Macau does have its own currency, and it is called pataca. It’s also useful for tourists to know that everybody uses Hong Kong dollars.
