★★Worth it·Portuguese church
Santa Cruz Church
โบสถ์ซางตาครู้ส
The 1770 Portuguese church anchoring Kudi Chin — cross the river, eat the Portuguese-Thai cakes, walk the lanes. Bangkok's oldest immigrant quarter in one loop.
The Portuguese church of Kudi Chin, founded 1770 after the fall of Ayutthaya — the current 1916 dome presides over lanes still baking khanom farang cakes to a 250-year-old recipe. The riverside quarter around it is Bangkok's oldest immigrant story, walkable in an hour.
Philip Nalangan CC BY 4.0 · Philip Nalangan CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons · resized · tap to enlarge
Visiting
- Open
- daily (interior reliably open around Mass times)
- Entry
- FreeNo ticket; donations welcome. Interior usually open only around Mass (early morning and about 17:00–19:30); outside any timeReported by visitors and guides, not by the venue.
- Dress
- Modest dress
- Allow
- 20–30 min (1–1.5 h with Kudi Chin walk)
No official opening hours published — check on the day.
Checked 10 Oct 2026 against openstreetmap.org, commons.wikimedia.org, touristbangkok.com, renown-travel.com. Things change: closures for royal ceremonies and holidays are common.
Visiting a temple
- Shoulders and knees covered, for everyone. Sarongs are usually available at the gate, sometimes for a small deposit.
- Shoes come off before you step into an ordination hall — watch what everyone else is doing at the threshold.
- Most compounds open early, around 08:00, and close by 17:00–18:00; the major ones charge foreign visitors a small entry fee.
- Early morning is cooler, quieter and far better light than midday.
Check current entry fee and today's closing time when you arrive — we have no verified official site for this one.
Getting there
- Santa Cruz Church pier·Cross-river ferries~2 min walk
- Wat Arun pier·Cross-river ferries~11 min walk
- Itsaraphap·MRT Blue Line~14 min walk
- Wat Arun pier·Chao Phraya Tourist Boat~14 min walk
Typical times, not a timetable · rail, boat and BRT routing runs right in the atlas.
While you're here
- Baan Kudichin Museum·Community museum~1 min walk
- Kian Un Keng Shrine·Chinese shrine~3 min walk
- Wat Kalayanamit·Temple~5 min walk
- Memorial Bridge·Historic bridge~6 min walk
The neighbourhood
Santa Cruz Church sits in Thon Buri & Talat Phlu — The capital before the capital.