Our hotel was on Taipa. On our second day in Macau we tried to take the hotel shuttle over the bridge to the downtown section of Macau on the mainland, but it was already full. So we decided to take the public bus instead. After studying the signs at a couple of bus stops and watching buses come and go we chose which one we thought we should take and got in line. It took exact fare only. Problem was we still didn’t quite understand the Pataca system and we mostly had notes and not coins. We stepped into a 7-11 and bought water bottles to get some change for the bus, but it still wasn’t small enough (8 Macau Dollar = 1 USD) and we needed 370 patacas (like pennies we guessed). Chrissy asked an old woman to show us which of our coins we could use for the bus. She looked at the coins in Rex’s hands and apparently we didn’t have the right ones so she reached in her own coin purse and gave us a 20 pataca (@2.5 cents) to go with the other coins we had. We thanked her and tried to give her one of our coins in exchange, but she wouldn’t take it. We all got on the same bus and every once in awhile we’d look over at her and she was still smiling at us, obviously happy to have helped us out. It was very sweet.
Once we made it downtown by bus, we walked to Macau Tower (famous for bungee jumping or free falling and was a “roadblock” spot on the Amazing Race). While there we went to a visiting Exhibition on DaVinci. What an eccentric genius! Most interesting to Chrissy were his anatomical drawings done from his ‘hobby’ of dissection, as well as the extensive information on the Mona Lisa. Rex liked all the replicas of his crazy inventions.
From the Tower we made our way over to the oldest part of the city, a colonial port on the southeast side of mainland Macau, established by the Portuguese. Here we began our walking tour which took us through an area designated as a collective World Heritage site with 25 sites 
to visit along the walking route. There are a couple of tall hills in Macau, but most of the walk route winds it’s way along the hills so we didn’t have to go straight up the hills. All of the WH sites and route are surrounded by bustling neighborhoods. The streets are narrow.
Often buses come charging around corners, so you must be careful crossing streets or even walking along the even narrower sidewalks. 
Most of the sights are churches or temples, but also include the Old Post Office, an old Moor Barracks, an elegant Teatro, a huge fortress, and Senado Square - a large plaza surrounded by old 2 story bldgs with shops & restaurants and streets leading off in many directions to even more shopping streets and leading further up the hill. But, the highlight of Macao for us was seeing the ruins of Sao Paulo. Sao Paulo was a colonial era cathedral.
Its only remnant is the front gable stone wall. The wall is about 10 feet thick. The approach to the ruins takes you through Senado Square and up a street lined with shops. As you round the final corner Sao Paulo towers ahead at the top of a long flight of stairs, quite impressive. 
A definite treat at the end of the trail! We stayed until dusk, visiting the Fortress next door in the meantime, in order to see the area lit up at night. As the sun went down we watched the casinos nearby getting brighter and brighter and the softly lit Fortress and Sao Paulo took on a beautiful glow. Facinating contrast of the two faces of Macau. 
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