Macau · MO

Ruins of Saint Paul's

The Ruins of Saint Paul's are Macau's defining landmark: a soaring granite wall standing alone at the head of a steep flight of stone steps, all that survived when a fire consumed the great Church of Mater Dei and the adjoining St. Paul's College in 1835. What looks, from a distance, like the front of a ruined cathedral is in fact the elaborate stone facade that once closed the building's front face—and behind it there is nothing but sky. That ghostly survivor, carved to fuse European Baroque design with Chinese and Japanese ornament, has become the symbol of a city built where two civilisations met. A visit is short but rarely shallow. The facade is open to view around the clock and the site is free, so you can climb the steps, stand beneath the carving, and read a monument that compresses the entire history of Sino-Portuguese Macau into five stacked levels of stone. Behind the wall lie the excavated foundations of the college, a crypt and the Museum of Sacred Art, while the lanes below—Na Tcha Temple, Monte Fort, the old city walls and the route down to Senado Square—make the ruins the centrepiece of one of Asia's most walkable heritage quarters.