Hong Kong 2025 Day 3-II: Historic Centre of Macau & Return via HZMB (澳门一日游.下)
- Rick
- Aug 7
- 7 min read
Updated: Sep 26
Day 3 | Part 1: Ferry to Macau Taipa & Coloane (澳门一日游.上)
7th August 2025, Thursday | 🌦
2:50pm, the rain had stopped as we exited from Barra Station (妈阁站), but the sky was still pretty cloudy. Even though sundown was still few hours away, the gloomy, overcast sky made the atmosphere seemed like dusk. Following the main road (Av. Panorâmica do Lago Sai Van / 西湾湖景大马路 — why were road names in Macau so long?), we came to Templo de A-Ma / A-Ma Temple (妈阁庙) — one of the key landmarks in the Historic Centre of Macau (澳门历史城区), a UNESCO World Heritage Site inscribed in 2005.
A-Ma Temple, built in 1488, was one of the oldest temple in Macau dedicated to the Chinese sea-goddess Mazu (妈祖). As expected of an ancient temple of several centuries, there were quite a number of prayers and visitors but not crowded. We spent about 10 minutes to check out the temple from outside, but skipped the inner temple ground, before taking a hike through the historic centre towards Senado Square.
Less then 50 metres from A-Ma Temple, along Calçada da Barra (妈阁斜巷), we came across another outlet of Koi Kei Bakery (钜记饼家). It was very quiet, in stark contrast to the super-crowded scene at the outlet in Taipa Village. However, the Barra outlet featured a Macau Museum of Souvenir (手信博物馆) with some 3D cravings of popular Macau landmarks (Guia Fortress & Lighthouse and Ruins of St. Paul) and Koi Kei Bakery' own famous products on its outer wall. We did not go in to check out the in-house museum since we had bought some products in Taipa Village and also wanting to cover more grounds before sundown.
3:15pm, continuing along Calçada da Barra, we passed by the yellow-and-white Quartel dos Mouros / Moorish Barracks (摩尔兵营), also known as the Port Authority Building (港務局大樓), a neo-classical structure sitting on Barra Hill. The historical barracks was built in August 1874 to accommodate a regiment from Goa, Portuguese India. It now housed the headquarters of the Marine and Water Bureau. Just couple of photos from outside the structure, we continued straight along Rua da Barra (妈阁街).
In Portuguese, "Rua da" and "Rua do" both mean "Street of the," with the choice depending on the gender of the noun that follows: "da" is used before feminine nouns, while "do" is used before masculine nouns.
For 15 minutes, we walked up, and sometimes down, the narrow street of Rua da Barra with rows of old housing blocks that had shops on the ground floors and residential units above. Most of the housing units were "caged" with metal grills to keep out intruders as the units were too close to each other. We also walked passed Lilau Square (亚婆井前地), a small opening, but seeing nothing of interest, we moved on — missing the water fountain that was not obvious from the road.
Next, we came to Igreja de São Lourenço / St. Lawrence’s Church (圣老愣佐堂) which was also painted in yellow and white. The Catholic church was first built before 1560 by the Jesuits and rebuilt in 1846. There were hardly anyone around. A brief 5 minutes here and we exited from the rear entrance.
Not far away, stood Igreja e Seminário de São José / St. Joseph's Seminary and Church (圣若瑟修院藏珍馆), another Catholic church erected in 1758. We took a couple of photos from its arched entrance and left.
Walking through the streets of Rua do Seminario and then Rua da Alfândega, we came to an intersection with Rua da Felicidade, saw a dessert shop named Yi Yan Tang Dessert (一燕糖甜品) and decided to take a break. The time was 3:50pm — we had used one hour to get here from Barra Station. Despite the cloudy sky, the high humidity and warm atmosphere of the hot summer made us sweaty and tired.
Yi Yan Tang Dessert served more than just desserts, there were food dishes too, but it was too early for dinner so we had desserts. We ordered their signature Sesame Paste & Almond Paste (太极杏仁拼芝麻糊, MOP26) and Mango Grass Jelly with Taro Balls (芒果烧仙草芋圆, MOP42).
4:30pm, we exited Yi Yan Tang and walked down Rua da Felicidade / Fulong New Street (福隆新街). The narrow street used to be a red-light district in Macau but was now a bustling street lined with traditional sweet shops, bakeries, restaurants, cafes, etc. Perhaps, it was still early — or late? — or not a weekend that the street seemed less "bustling" to us. We walked till the end of Fulong New Street, seeing that most shops were closed, and turned back via Av. de Almeida Ribeiro (亞美打利庇盧大马路), a busy road, to Senado Square.
"All roads lead to Rome" but in Macau, they led to Senado Square — literally and figuratively. This was where nearly all visitors to Macau would end up at. The crowds made taking "clear" photos of the paved town square impossible.
Largo do Senado / Senado Square, or Senate Square (议事亭前地), was named after the Leal Senado Building, a meeting place for the Chinese and Portuguese in the 16th to 18th centuries. Majority of the buildings around the square were European-styled and many were protected monuments. At one end of the town square stood Largo do São Domingos / St. Dominic's Church (玫瑰聖母堂 / 板樟堂), yet another Catholic Church that was established in 1587.
The shortest and most direct path from Senado Square to the Ruins of St. Paul (大三巴牌坊) was too crowded with people, so we took an indirect route through rows of little shops and worked our way to the well-known landmark.
Built in the 17th-century by the Jesuits, the Church of St. Paul was one of the largest Catholic churches in Asia at that time. It was destroyed by a fire during a typhoon in 1835. The facade of the church was left standing till this day.
As expected, the number of people crowding the stairways to the Ruins of St. Paul was numerous despite the hot summer season. We stayed at the foot of the stairway, took a short rest and decided to end the tour of the historic centre here, although there were still more to see. It had been a long day and we decided to find dinner before heading back to Hong Kong.
6pm, we decided on having pork chop bun again as a quicker way to settle dinner and also because an outlet of Sei Kei Cafe (世纪咖啡), well-known for its pork chop buns, was just nearby. I had tried Sei Kee Cafe once in 2008 and would like to go for it again.
Sei Kei Cafe was located at one end of a short alley off Rua da Palha. The items sold here were for takeaway only. We placed our orders for 2 Pork Chop Bun with Egg (厚蛋猪扒包, MOP50 each) and it took slightly less than 10 minutes for the delicacies to be ready. Wow, the pork chop buns were huge!
We ate the pork chop buns as we made our way through the streets to the main road on the west side of Macau Peninsula. The bus-stops along that road had a Bus Service 101X to the Macau Port Passenger Clearance Building of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge (HZMB) — in fact, any buses starting with "101" would head to the Macau Port. We found a quiet spot along the way, stopped and chomped down the meaty buns before continuing.
Finally, it was time to be heading back to Hong Kong. We crossed Rua das Lorchas to a bus-stop outside Hotel Sofitel Macau at Ponte 16. A Bus Service 101X came along but it was full and we could not get on. 8 minutes later, another Service 101X came along and we boarded the half-empty bus for MOP6 per person. The time was 6:40pm as we began the journey to Hong Kong.
It took just 25 minutes for the bus to arrive at the Macau Port of the HZMB. The passenger clearance facility was huge! We bought the tickets for the shuttle bus (MOP65 per person) using our Octopus cards at the automated ticketing kiosks — it was a mistake, we should have bought the tickets using credit card as the amount depleted our Octopus cards and resulted in us topping-up the cards using cash after arriving in Hong Kong.
After a quick clearance through Macau immigration, we proceeded to the bus bay. There were 3 Hong Kong-bounded shuttle buses in wait and we boarded one of them. All passengers were required to buckle up the seat belts before the bus would move off.
7:28pm, the shuttle bus embarked to cross the 55-kilometre long bridge — longer than the length of Singapore (50Km). It took 30 minutes to cross the Zhujiang / Pearl River Estuary to reach the southwestern tip of Hong Kong International Airport and another 6 minutes to HZMB Hong Kong Port Passenger Clearance Building. Using HZMB shuttle bus service was a cheaper alternative to using ferry services but in the aspects of time taken and change of transports, there were pros and cons depending on the final destination.
And, we were in Hong Kong again. When we tried to use the automated gantries for immigration clearance, they failed and we had to go through the manual channel. It seemed like foreigners could only use the automated gantries on departure only. After exiting from HZMB Hong Kong Port, we walked to the bus platform and looked for the bus-stop for Cityflyer Airport Service A21, the same bus service that we took on Day 1 from the airport to Yau Ma Tei (油麻地).
8:30pm, the double-decker bus came along and we paid the fare of HKD34.60 per person using Octopus cards again. 45 minutes later, we were in Yau Ma Tei and back in The Cityview Hotel just before 9:30pm.
It was a fruitful trip to Macau as most of our objectives were fulfilled and the pace was not too fast. But it was a very brief revisit as one day was not enough to explore Macau thoroughly — and it had really changed a lot. I would probably visit Macau again on another trip, spend more days in the SAR and maybe visit Hong Kong on a day-trip instead.
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