Taipa Houses Museum

If you have ever wondered what life was like for a well-to-do Macanese family in the early twentieth century, this is the place to find out. Five beautiful peppermint-green colonial houses stand in a row along the Taipa waterfront, their shuttered windows and shaded verandas looking out over what was once a quiet stretch of water between Taipa and Coloane islands. Today, the view has changed dramatically, with the glittering towers of the Cotai Strip rising where the sea used to be, but these houses remain as elegant and serene as ever. Built in 1921, these were the homes of senior Macanese civil servants, the mixed-heritage Portuguese-Chinese families who formed a distinctive community unique to Macao. The Macanese, or filhos da terra as they sometimes called themselves, developed their own cuisine, their own creole language called Patua, and a way of life that blended the best of both their ancestral cultures. These houses are a window into that vanished world. The first house has been restored as a traditional Macanese residence, furnished with period pieces that show how these families lived. You will see heavy carved wooden furniture from Portugal mixed with Chinese rosewood cabinets, Catholic devotional art alongside Chinese...