São Paulo - Brazil
Artistic, laid-back and hot.
Getting to São Paulo was our first experience with South American bus travel, and we were both rather impressed. We got there late on the Friday so found somewhere for dinner and spent the evening at the hostel.
Once again, free walking tours were our friend and we explored the downtown historical Center on Friday morning. This was a very long walking tour lasting over 3 and a half hours. We saw many churches and cathedrals along with more modern city/public buildings. During the tour we passed city hall, we learnt of a rooftop garden so we decided once the tour had finished to head there. There are only three tours a day allowing 10 people and luckily we were there in plenty time to put our names down. Although the views from the roof top garden were impressive we did have to listen to a lot of Portuguese which we didn’t understand leaving us standing around at some points - but for free can we complain?
With the same company on the Sunday we explored Vila Madelena. We were both super excited for this as it’s home to the famous batman alley and many other displays of street art. We both loved the area, it was very student oriented with many bars and cool restaurants. Again another long tour, but at the end we were drawn in by another of Paulista Avenue. Paulista Avenue was a huge 8 lane avenue which on Sundays is closed only for pedestrians use - this still amazes us both - can you even imagine that happening in London, nobody would be able to cope. Paulista Avenue originally was home to large mansions and was a wealthy area full of national heritage sites. Now it’s home to shopping centres, business buildings, and some of the preserved heritage sites.
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