The Guia Lighthouse
It has been 150 years since the Guia Lighthouse was built in 1864 and began its operation the following year. Whilst silently witnessing the city’s enormous changes from up on the Guia Hill, the lighthouse has also continued to function up until today, guiding the way for navigators and hoisting typhoon signals.
To celebrate its 150th anniversary, the Marine and Water Bureau, the Macau Post and the Cultural Affairs Bureau (IC) will launch a series of activities in July, including opening the lighthouse’s interior to the public, offering free visits to marine facilities, and releasing a set of commemorative stamps.
Designed by Macau-born Portuguese artist Carlos Vicente da Rocha, the lighthouse is the oldest lighthouse on the South China coast and was once the landmark for ships entering the Pearl River before radars became popular. Today it still overlooks the city from the highest point on the Macau peninsula, and emits a rotating light that can be seen 16 nautical miles away.
In 2005, the Guia Lighthouse complex, including the Guia Fortress and the Chapel of Our Lady of Guia, was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as part of the Historic Centre of Macau.
“The number of visitors have been growing; last year it recorded a total of 120,000 visits, which means it received roughly 10,000 visitors each month. That seems to be a huge number, but visitors can share the spaces on the fortress, the exhibition hall and the chapel; usually everyone still fits comfortably,” explained the IC’s cultural heritage civil engineer, Alex Chan, during a press conference yesterday.
Mr Chan revealed that the conservation process aims to integrate
the entire environment and better manage the space to serve visitors. “Opening it to public visitors is precisely the way of heritage conservation; it’s meaningless to keep an empty house sitting here,” he stressed, adding that the bureau is also monitoring the Chapel’s frescoes in order to prevent them from deteriorating.
The Lighthouse’s interior space –
usually not open to the public – will also be open from 10 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. this Saturday and Sunday as well as on future Saturdays and Sundays in July. “Every July day when it’s open, it must be bustling and busy there, as citizens will be jumping for joy to see it,” said the Marine and Water Bureau’s representative, Ms Lao Weng U.
Ms Lao explained that the lighthouse won’t be open on weekdays, as visits would disturb its personnel work routine. Furthermore, to mark the Marine and Water Bureau Day on July 18, the bureau will open some of its facilities and premises to visitors for free, including the Moorish Barracks, the Government Dockyard, the Maritime Museum, and the Fleet Base at Ilha Verde Dockyard.
Moreover, a set of two stamps will be issued by the Macao Post on July 8 for the Guia Lighthouse’s anniversary, featuring the lighthouse from different angles with the fortress and chapel.
tree collapses at guia hill exercise trail
A 6-meter-tall tree beside the Guia Fitness Walk fell to the ground and hit a jogger on Saturday evening. The 42-year-old female runner sustained injuries to an eye and a foot and was sent to the hospital for treatment.
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