When I told people I was going to Macau over a long weekend, I got some strange looks. To explain myself, I said I was a fan of Portuguese egg tarts, but they weren’t convinced. I could tell that they suspected me of being a compulsive gambler.

In truth, I was intrigued by the fact that Macau had been the last remaining colony in Asia, only being taken over officially from Portugal in 1999. Currently, it fits into the megalithic Chinese state as one of two SARS ― Special Administrative Regions. The other is its neighbor, Hong Kong.

This special status means that many nationals receive a free visa on arrival. And because of Macau’s small size, just a single weekend will suffice. It all seemed so easy that I stepped out of the arrivals terminal without ever having bothered to look at a guidebook or book a hotel room.

Soon I realized that the airport was on Taipa Island, and that I would have to take a bus. We passed by a luxury apartment complex with a mellifluous name ― Edificio do Jubileu de Prata ― then the Universidade de Macau. Only when we were approaching one of the three bridges to the Macau Peninsula did I catch a glimpse of several hyper-glitzy hotels with neoclassical facades that seemed to have encroached upon Taipa.

Then we passed over and landed in the thick of it. I followed everyone else out of the bus and stood looking up at the giant glittering fishtail that was the Grand Lisboa hotel-casino. Across the street was the much smaller but more approachable ’60s-era Casino Lisboa.

The hotels in this area were so far out of my price range that I quickly walked ahead, past outlandish light displays crying for attention and stores selling Chinese medicine ― deer antlers, shark-fin cartilage and caterpillar fungus from the Tibetan Plateau, along with much-coveted Moutai liquor.

When I reached Largo do Senado I saw that I was at the true navel of Macau, with Portuguese-era buildings on every side. Saving the sightseeing for later, I continued down Avenida de Almeida Ribeiro and began exploring the side streets for lodging. It was Saturday and the hotels were either fully booked or asking for over $100 a night.

Finally, on the verge of desperation, I picked out the word “Hospedaria” on a building near the waterfront docks. It was ornamented with small turquoise tiles, streaked black over the years, and marked with red Chinese characters that translated to “Big Old Magnificent Inn.” It was a flophouse.

That night, I found myself in the strange situation of studying a book on Chinese characters while the Chinese man in the next room listened to instructional English tapes.

The next day, Sunday, the touring began in earnest. The preeminent attraction is the Ruins of St. Paul’s, a cathedral that crumbled during a fire in 1835 with just the facade left standing. Of all the attractive facades and window dressings in Macau, St. Paul’s may be the most endearing.

Several other Portuguese churches awaited me, all perfectly intact, including the egg tart-yellow St. Dominic’s, which would blend in well in other former Portuguese colonies.

Tracing my way around the old streets and lanes of Macau, I began to use the many small plazas as resting spots, enjoying the chance to sit on a bench next to some foliage and watch people walk by on the cobblestones. Often I found myself in the company of Filipinos, who were enjoying their day off to socialize and drink beer, especially in the Largo do Senado. There are over 30,000 Filipinos working in Macau’s hospitality industry, many as housemaids and nannies for the wealthy.

I moved further northward to the Protestant Cemetery, finding out that a British community lived here before the East India Company set up a trading post in Hong Kong. In the baroque, florid park of Jardim De Luis De Camoes, I made my way up the winding paths to Camoes’ Grotto, where the national poet of Portugal is said to have sheltered and composed part of his great epic, “Os Lusiadas.”

It’s hard to believe that anyone could have lived in this hollow of twisted rock, though it must be granted that Macau’s hotel industry was still undeveloped in the 1550s and ’60s. Some historians claim that Camoes never set foot in Macau at all, but it’s amusing to imagine a European, around the time that Shakespeare was born, living like a Chinese hermit in the Middle Kingdom. Given my own hotel situation, I could sympathize with old Camoes.

The trip was rounded out by a walk along the shoreline to the A-Ma Temple. Dedicated to the goddess of sailors and fishermen, it was bustling with worshippers, many planting joss sticks in brass incense burners full of ash that looked like volcanic dust. Contributing to the smoky, sickly sweet atmosphere were the giant sticks burning outside the front gate and the dozens of incense coils hanging from above.

Built around 1488, about 25 years before the arrival of the first Portuguese, A-Ma Temple was flashier, more ornate, more colorful than the casinos, and I much preferred the incense to cigarette smoke.

By Matthew C. Crawford (mattcrawford@heraldcorp.com)