Looking for something different whilst staying in Kuala Lumpur I decided to take a full day bus tour down the north-south highway to Malacca (Melaka). Malacca is the third smallest Malaysian state, after Perlis and Penang and is located in the southern region of the Malay Peninsula, on the Straits of Malacca.
A highlight for me was visiting St Paul's Church on top of St. Paul's Hill, once the prayer house of the Portuguese Catholics, then turned into a burial ground for their noble dead by the Dutch. The tombstones have Latin and Portuguese inscriptions on them. St. Francis Xavier was buried here in 1553 before his body was moved to Goa in India. After the Portuguese captured Melaka, they built a fortress to defend themselves. This fortress, called A'Famosa, suffered severe destruction during the Dutch invasion and what remains today is just the entrance walls, albeit still well preserved.
A highlight for me was visiting St Paul's Church on top of St. Paul's Hill, once the prayer house of the Portuguese Catholics, then turned into a burial ground for their noble dead by the Dutch. The tombstones have Latin and Portuguese inscriptions on them. St. Francis Xavier was buried here in 1553 before his body was moved to Goa in India. After the Portuguese captured Melaka, they built a fortress to defend themselves. This fortress, called A'Famosa, suffered severe destruction during the Dutch invasion and what remains today is just the entrance walls, albeit still well preserved.
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