The Ruins of St Paul and a very busy Street
I’ve mentioned the Historic Centre of Macau a couple of times so far and that it is listed in the UNESCO World Heritage Site. At a United Nations Conference in 1972, the Convention concerning the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage sites was adopted by the participating nations. The convention aims to “catalogue and preserve sites of outstanding importance, either cultural or natural, to the common heritage of humankind” to ensure the protection of these sites for future generations. Aside from encouraging the home country to establish management plans for the site, the program includes providing assistance (including technical and financial assistance) to safeguard the sites and encourage the local population to look after their heritage.
The program includes natural wonders, places of cultural significance as well as sites constructed by man; and there are Heritage Sites on the list located all over the world. I looked up the list...seems like I've visited quite a few of them in the various countries without realising it. I was to add Macau's Historic Centre to that bucket list today.
The Historic Centre of Macau is a collection of over twenty locations that witness the unique assimilation and co-existence of Chinese and Portuguese cultures in Macau, a former Portuguese colony. It represents the architectural legacies of the city's cultural heritage, including monuments such as urban squares, streetscapes, churches and temples. It was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2005 and was described by UNESCO as:
"with its historic street, residential, religious and public Portuguese and Chinese buildings, the historic centre of Macao provides a unique testimony to the meeting of aesthetic, cultural, architectural and technological influences from East and West," and "...it bears witness to one of the earliest and longest-lasting encounters between China and the West, based on the vibrancy of international trade.”
There are two core zones of the Central area. We have already seen one of them – Guia Fortress.
The other zone consists of the Central area of the historic settlement of Macao. It includes a series of urban spaces and buildings from the ancient Chinese harbour in the south to the old city in the north. It starts at the A-Ma Temple, which we also visited. There are a number of buildings along the way from the A-Ma Temple to the city and if we didn’t have our Party@12, I would have walked the route from Senado Square to the temple to see as much of it as possible.
With our wheels….the walk will have to wait for next time.
We drove from Guia Hill and drove past Casa Gardens, the Protestant Cemetery and got a glimpse at St Anthony’s Church. I got enough of a look to know that I would love to come back, wander around and get lost in the area looking at the gardens, checking out tombstones and imagining what life would have been like here in the 18th Century. The architecture looked amazing from the windows of our wheels.
We were let out near the Ruins of St Paul. The wheels had provided us with transport for over 5 hours and it was time to say goodbye. For the HK$100 per person we paid, it had been fantastic value and it meant that the group stayed together to enjoy each other’s company.
The Ruins of St. Paul's refers to the ruins of a 16th century complex in Macau including of what was originally St. Paul's College and the Cathedral of St. Paul also known as "Mater Dei", a 17th century Portuguese cathedral dedicated to Saint Paul the Apostle.
Built from 1582 to 1602 by the Jesuits, the cathedral was one of the largest Catholic churches in Asia at the time, and the royalty of Europe vied with each other to bestow upon the cathedral the best gifts. It combines Baroque style with Chinese and Japanese sculptures. All that remains of the greatest of Macau's churches is its magnificent stone facade.
After the expulsion of the Jesuits, the college was used as an army barracks and in 1835 a fire started in the kitchens and destroyed the college and the body of the church. And the fire really wasn’t their fault – it happened in the middle of a typhoon. The surviving facade is covered with carvings and statues which eloquently illustrate the early days of the Church in Asia. There are statues of the Virgin and saints, symbols of the Garden of Eden and the Crucifixion, angels and the devil, a Chinese dragon and a Japanese chrysanthemum, a Portuguese sailing ship and pious warnings inscribed in Chinese. Mr TA told us that the Macanese did try to rebuild the church at some stage and did raised money to do so; but another fire broke out and I guess they thought that fate was trying to tell them something; so they left the façade as is. I don’t know how true this story is.
I snaffled these close-ups from DH’s collection. I think they showed the carvings and statues much better than mine!
After restoration work, lasting from 1990 to 1995, the back side of the Ruins of St. Paul's was turned into a museum. The ruins are regarded as the symbol of Macau and now offer visitors a new site where they can view the remains of the former Church of the Mother of God, visit a Crypt where the relics of the martyrs of Japan and Vietnam rest, and a museum of Sacred Art where there are exhibits of paintings, sculptures and liturgical objects from churches and monasteries in the City.
I had tried to go to the back side of the Ruins. Sadly, the Party@12 realised that I had the ultra-wide angle lens with me and I spent my time taking individual, couple and group shots of the group in front of the façade….much like this. Everyone else had full body shots, including legs in their pictures….except us! Next time I’m bringing my tripod and charging money for the service. Still; I would have liked to have gone to the back and climbed the steel stairs to the opening where people throw coins in for good luck.
That wave pattern had been replicated in the plantings around here.
We walked down the stairs, taking a last look at the Ruins. For those of you wondering about my taking pictures of the Party@12 from up the top.....most people were taking their pictures for 2/3 up the stairs in order to get the full façade in. If we had taken our shots from there, we would have gotten a frame full of people and very little of the bottom of the church.
There were a TON of people around….
…we were heading in there!
At the bottom of the stairs is the Company of Jesus Square.
This building is the new Tourism and Cultural Activities Centre. Opened in 2011, it contains a whole bunch of services you would expect as a tourist.
A contrast of old and new; both European-like in style.
For anyone going, Mount Fortress and the Old City Walls are to the right of the Ruins; together with the Na Tcha Temple. I would have liked to have explored around here a bit more; but by this time it was 3.30 pm and we hadn’t had lunch yet. My stomach made the call and I followed it.
Mr TA had a place in mind for lunch and told us to keep going down this street, Rua de Sao Paolo (St Paul Street).
The road just got narrower…
….and narrower.
Anyone else think that it was overrun with tourists?
The shops here were tourist-focused, from the food to the souvenirs.
It seemed like two out of three shops had displays of the yoke korn or long yoke; and were offering free samples to the tourists walking by. I guess if you read ehsmum’s comments in an earlier post, free samples were offered to Asian tourists. We did have some “gwai loh” in our Party@12 but because they were with us, they got offered the free samples too.
Quite a number of shops also had the almond biscuits for sale. Judging from the colour (and my earlier ‘education’ by the sales person at the Koi Kei shop), these were yet to be cooked!
I couldn’t believe how packed it was with people; but take a look at the residential part above the street level. Imagine living here!
If anything, the street got even narrower as we walked further down. And we were starting to see fashion signs down this end.
And suddenly….we turned the corner.
We were walking past quite a few lovely looking buildings along Rua da Palha. It was all very European and the last time I had seen something similar was in the Old Town of Quebec. I thought it was really rather charming. Problem was….it was nearly 4 pm and it was way past lunch time for us. We.were.hungry.
(Continued in Next Post)