Hong Kong Island

As you will discover during your MSC Grand Voyages cruise, Hong Kong Island is the heart of the whole territory, its administrative and business centre and site of some of the most expensive real estate in the world.

Development is concentrated along the island’s north shore, a 6km-long strip of financial, commercial and entertainment districts overlooking Victoria Harbour. 

At its core, Central sprouts an astounding array of high-tech towers, edged to the west by Sheung Wan’s smaller-scale and traditional Chinese businesses. Behind this the land climbs steeply to The Peak, wherever you get them from, vistas are stupendous, down over the island’s intensely crowded north shore, across the busy harbour to a lower-rise, unspectacular Kowloon and the green peaks of the New Territories. Man Mo Temple is one of the oldest in Hong Kong, waiting to be value on an MSC Grand Voyages cruise excursion.

It dates to the 1840s and was originally founded as a charitable institution; the central atrium beyond is hung with great spiral incense coils suspended from the ceiling, filling the interior with eye-watering, aromatic smoke. Back along the harbour and moving east through Wan Chai and Causeway Bay, the emphasis shifts from finance to wining, dining and shopping. The south side of Hong Kong Island straggles into the sea in a series of dangling peninsulas and islets. The attractions here are separate towns such as Aberdeen and Stanley, with a flavour of their own, and also beaches, the best of which fronts the little outpost of Shek O. East of the Aberdeen expressway, Causeway Bay forms a knot of lively, seething streets packed with restaurants, accommodation and shopping plazas, its eastern part is dominated by Victoria Park, an extensive, open space containing shady paths, swimming pools and other sport facilities.