Hong Kong and Macau
Sleep in Macau, don't day-trip it — the old town at eight is a different city.
City Classic · 4 days · October to December
Nearly everyone does Macau in a day, lands at eleven with the ferry crowd, photographs the Ruins of St Paul's over other people's heads and leaves before dinner. Give it a night instead: the historic centre at eight in the morning is genuinely empty, and Taipa and Coloane only make sense in the evening when the Macanese kitchens are actually open. The Hong Kong half deliberately spends a morning on a ridge above the South China Sea, because the thing people never believe about the city is how quickly it stops.
Day by day
- Day 1
Central, then up the hill
A colonial prison compound, sunset from the Peak, and charcoal clay pots after dark.
15:00Tai Kwun
Sixteen buildings dating from 1841 that served as a police station until 2006 — the clearest single site for how Hong Kong was actually run.
The compound is free to enter. The JC Contemporary galleries and the Victoria Prison cell blocks are separately timed and worth reserving online.
17:30Victoria Peak
Arrive for the last hour of light and stay into blue hour — the harbour only resolves into a skyline once the towers switch on.
Walk the level Lugard Road loop instead of queuing for the Peak Tower deck. Same view, no ticket, and it rings the summit in about 45 minutes.
20:30Temple Street Night Market
Rice cooked over charcoal on the pavement, which is the last of a Hong Kong that really is disappearing.
The clay-pot rice stalls sit at the Jordan end. The market now thins out well before midnight.
- Day 2
Ridge and harbour, then the ferry
An open ridge before lunch, the Star Ferry after it, and dinner in Macau.
08:00Dragon's Back
Half an hour from Central and you are on an open ridge above the South China Sea, which is the part of Hong Kong nobody expects.
Start at the To Tei Wan stop on bus 9 from Shau Kei Wan and walk south towards Big Wave Bay — that direction keeps the sea beside you and finishes at a beach with a bus back.
14:30Tsim Sha Tsui Promenade
The only place you see Hong Kong Island whole, and the crossing to reach it is the better half of the stop.
Cross on the Star Ferry rather than the MTR. The lower deck costs a few dollars and gives you the approach.
19:30Taipa Village
Macanese cooking exists nowhere else on earth, and Taipa is where it is still cooked rather than performed.
Rua do Cunha itself is snack stalls. The Macanese restaurants are on the parallel lanes a street back.
- Day 3
The peninsula, early
Three UNESCO sites before the day-trip ferries land, in the order that keeps them empty.
08:00A-Ma Temple
Macau took its name from this temple, and at eight in the morning the terraces are yours.
Built in 1488 and the oldest part of the Historic Centre of Macau. Incense smoke is thickest first thing, which is also when it photographs.
09:30Senado Square
The Portuguese wave-pattern paving reads as one continuous design only while the square is empty, which lasts until roughly ten.
10:45Ruins of St Paul's
A church front standing with nothing behind it, where the interesting half is the part everyone photographs from the front and never enters.
Climb the stair and walk behind the facade. The crypt and the Museum of Sacred Art are free and almost always empty.
- Day 4
Coloane, then the airport
The corner of Macau that never became a casino, and a ferry that skips Hong Kong entirely.
09:00Coloane Village
A working fishing village with a black-sand beach and the original Portuguese egg tart, on the one island the casinos left alone.
Lord Stow's original bakery is here in Coloane, not in Taipa, and the egg tarts come out of the oven in batches through the morning. If your onward carrier participates, the ferry from Taipa runs straight to the airport's SkyPier without you clearing Hong Kong immigration.
Questions
- How long is the Hong Kong and Macau itinerary?
- The Hong Kong and Macau itinerary runs 4 days and covers 10 stops across Hong Kong, Macau.
- When is the best time to do the Hong Kong and Macau itinerary?
- October to December is the best window for the Hong Kong and Macau itinerary.
- What happens on day one of the Hong Kong and Macau itinerary?
- Day one is central, then up the hill: A colonial prison compound, sunset from the Peak, and charcoal clay pots after dark.
Sources
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