Attractions

A-Ma Temple

Called Ma Kok Miu in Cantonese, this striking temple is dedicated to the goddess A-Ma, better known as Tin Hau. There was a temple here when the Portuguese arrived, although the present structure may only date from the 17th century. At the main entrance is a large boulder with an engraved lorcha (traditional sailing vessel of the South China Sea).

Guia Fort

Overlooking the Lou Lim Ioc Gardens, the Guia Fort is perched on the peninsula's highest point and topped by a chapel and the Chinese coast's oldest lighthouse (1865). It's a long and perspiring walk to the top, but there are few better places in Macau to get your bearings (if you're too tuckered out, you can catch a ride up on a teeny cable car).

Kun Iam Temple

Dating from 1627, this is the most interesting and active Buddhist temple in Macau. Rooms adjacent to the main hall honour the goddess of mercy with a collection of pictures and scrolls. Some of the reliefs at the front were damaged by Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution.

The temple is also of historical note, as the first treaty of trade and friendship between the USA and China was signed here in 1844. These days the incense-shrouded complex is thronged with fortune tellers and visitors.

Leal Senado

Macau Peninsula's focal point is the arcaded Largo do Senado (Senate Square), traced with the territory's characteristically swirl-patterned cobble-paving and lined with fine colonial buildings. The clean, neo-classical lines of the Leal Senado (senate building) fill the square's southern side - wander inside to check out the panelled Senate Chamber, 16th-century library and interior courtyard decorated with classic Portuguese azulejo tiling. The Senado area is dotted with fine churches such as the cream-and-white, 17th-century São Domingos, home to the image of Our Lady of Fatima which is carted about the streets during the annual Fatima Festival.

Lou Lim Ioc Gardens

The Lou Lim Ioc Gardens are a landscaped wonderland of European and Chinese plants surrounding an ornately columned and arched mansion - take your pick of lotus ponds, pavilions, groves, grottoes, twisting pathways, ornamental mountains and curiously shaped doorways to nowhere.

Ruinas de Igreja São Paulo

The façade is all that remains of this Jesuit church built in the early 17th century. But with its wonderful statues, portals and engravings, some consider the ruins of the Church of St Paul to be the greatest monument to Christianity in Asia.

The Italian-designed hilltop cathedral was built by Japanese Christian exiles in the early 17th century, and even in ruins its grandiose scale is a stunning reminder of Macau's glorious past. The cathedral was all but destroyed by fire during a disastrous typhoon in 1835, which spared only the screen-like facade, mosaic floor and 66-step approach.

The site is all the more impressive when it's floodlit at night, soaring one-dimensionally over the surrounding apartment blocks: squint upwards to spot some local flavour in the carving of a woman stamping on a seven-headed hydra, with Chinese characters reading 'the Holy Mother tramples the heads of the dragon'.

There's a museum in the cathedral's former nave, with pride of place going to the highly prized piece of St Francis Xavier's arm bone and the tomb belonging to the cathedral's builder, Jesuit Father Alessandro Valignano.

Sun Yat Sen Memorial Home

This strangely Moorish-style memorial house pays homage to the founder of the Chinese Republic, who practised medicine in Macau for several years before turning to revolution and the overthrow of the Qing dynasty. The first memorial house blew up while being used as an explosives store, but an assortment of flags, photos and relics remain.