Rio at age 450: Ten things I love and hate about the Marvelous City (UPDATED March 2017)

RIO DE JANEIRO

From the blogger's apartment in Copacabana,
a view of the Sugar Loaf mountain near
where Rio de Janeiro was founded 450 years ago 

This week saw the city I have been calling my second home for several years now celebrate its 450th anniversary. St Sebastian of the River of January (to give it its full name)  was indeed founded on March 1, 1565, by Portuguese officer Estácio de Sá. Fresh on the heels of Carnaval, Cariocas (as Rio's residents are known) used the pretext to carry on partying, and indeed fun was had in different parts of this amazing city: concert in the Quinta da Boa Vista park (where the imperial family used to live), another one off the Guanabara Bay on reclaimed Aterro do Flamengo park, and a 450-m cake was shared by whomever showed up in old Rio. It was fun watching Carioca kids engaging in cake fights, a local version of  snowball fights.

For me, a foreign transplant during several months a year,  it is time to reflect on what I love about the city...and what I hate.

1. LOVE: My favorite streets: Paissandu and Constante Ramos

Actually there are more, but I will stick to these two. Paissandu Street starts from Flamengo Beach in the neighborhood of the same name and links it to another neighborhood, Laranjeiras, at the foot of Corcovado mountain. Lined on both sides by imperial palm-trees and graced by beautiful mansions that hark back to a time when it was the city's most desirable location (the street was built as a grand entrance to Princess Isabel's palace at the Laranjeiras end), Rua Paissandu was home to the  (fictional) couple in the novel A Sucessora (which according to some was plagiarized by Daphne du Maurier in her famous novel, Rebecca, - I read both and have to admit the similarities are just too many.)

Guanabara Palace built in the mid-19th century by
the Emperor Pedro II for his daughter, Princess Isabel.
It is now the home of the governor of Rio (2013)

Rua Constante Ramos is right at the corner of the street across from my building in Copacabana. When I come back back from

The best coffee in Rio (2010)

my daily dip in the water (weather permitting) I have no greater pleasure than admiring on my right the Capricciosa building, a stunning Art Deco mansion (now turned into serviced apartments) that looks as if it had been transplanted straight from Miami Beach. And, then, in front of me, the dramatic plunging view of the huge grass-covered and favela-free mountain that towers over the nearby buildings. Quite a sight. Just before I cross the Avenida de Copacabana into my building, is one of my favorite cafés in Rio: Cafeina, which serves  the best coffee in town and delicious pastries (brigadeiro is my favorite.)

2. HATE: Leaving items at supermarket checkout

An irritating feature of Brazilian shoppers, at least in Rio, is the tendency to fill their shopping cart with every item that catches their fancy as they stroll from aisle to aisle. And when they arrive at checkout that's when they start making decisions about what to buy and what to discard. This means that not only the checkout line (already long by nature) takes even longer to clear, but you also find yourself struggling with the bottles, fruit, cans and assorted item left on the belt. Particularly worrying are frozen/refrigerated food which is left to defrost or go warm for hours with nobody from the store (certainly not the lady at the cash register)  seeming to mind.

3. HATE: Random violence

The day in 2009  the blogger was shot at.
The bus I was riding  in received a stray bullet which went
straight through my window seat. The bus driver didn't stop
as "nobody was hurt" he said

The culture of violence and neglect in Brazil means that, without being paranoid, you have to be aware that you can become a victim of violence through no fault of yours, actually without even anybody's intention. Exploding manholes, falling buildings, preventable fires, predictable mudslides can happen at any moment. One of the saddest and scariest are stray bullets which a housewife busy hanging her laundry on her balcony can receive and fall mortally wounded. I myself was once in a bus when two cars drove by exchanging gunshots (sometimes it's gangsters engaging in shootouts, sometimes its cops in hot pursuit of them). One of the bullets went through my window (see picture left), passing a couple of inches from my nose. I couldn't find the bullet, but I still keep fragments of the window. By the way, stray bullets are a tradition in Rio: Estácio de Sá was killed by a stray arrow!

4. LOVE: Easily found, good home-made food

Sure, there are Burger Kings, McDonald's and KFC "restaurants" (the French in me just cannot accept to grant such places the noble accolade of "restaurant") as well as local clones such as Bob's, but they are outnumbered by a true Brazilian institution: the per-weight self-service restaurant. Due to the dreadful state of Brazilian logistics and transportation, it is is difficult to move (and keep) frozen food, so everything you see at these places is home made. And it is succulent. With particularly fertile soil, Brazil boasts great produce (fruit, vegetable, meat) which in turn makes for tasty food, something hard to come by in the United States or Europe.

5. LOVE: The irrepressible chatter of Brazilians

I lived five months in Zurich, Switzerland, last year. I never got to meet a single of my neighbors. The rare times I'd see them on the stairs or coming out of the elevator, they'd run away before I got to utter, "Gute Morgen." In Rio, people would talk to you anywhere: in a store, on the street, on the elevator, on a bus. Anytime somebody is next to you and they feel like sharing something with you, they will. Sure, sometimes the verbal diarrhea is a bit of an imposition, but the warmth and  the spirited conversation often make up for it.

6. HATE: Erratic urban planning and eyesores

The Ypriranga building popularly known as the
Mae West, as an obvious reference to the buxom
1920s movie star.  This Art Deco  masterpiece was
the first building  I visited  when I started  apartment
hunting in Rio. Renowned architect
Oscar Niemeyer had his office on the top floor
(2008)

Rio is famed for its beauty, but it is of course its natural beauty we are talking about. Man-made works tend to scar the landscape rather than enhance it. Almost any street will have buildings built at odd angles, asymmetrical, with an unequal number of stories. One of my "favorite" eyesore is the Othon Palace Hotel, the tallest building on Copacabana Beach. How on earth was this 20-story allowed to go up when according to regulations no building higher than 13 is allowed? That's Brazil for you. A couple of blocks down, there used to be a lovely Art Deco mansion housing the Austrian Embassy.  It was one of the last single dwellings on the beach. I used to love to sit next to it and in one swoop glance take in the Sugar Loaf and the Pink House as it was familiarly known. Not any longer. Despite being listed (and therefore protected) it was sold, torn down and some tall hotel will replace it.

Where once stood the lovely Casa Rosa... (2012)

...Destruction ... (2013)

...Before a charmless and soulless hotel
erases all memory of the lovely villa (2017)

An even more (in)famous case was that of the Palácio Monroe, in Downtown Rio. Before the giant Christ the Redeemer statue was built, the Palácio Monroe was a symbol of the city until it was inexplicably torn down to make way for a...parking lot! (Fortunately, the city also boasts great buildings from its colonial past, many well preserved, and in the Cinelândia and Copacabana neighborhoods, gorgeous Art Deco buildings are a testimony that some efforts to mirror the city's natural beauty were not in vain.)

A successful architectural mix of old and new at the MAR,
Rio's most recent museum, the week it opened (March 2013)

                                                                  



7. LOVE: Natural and human beauty

From Christ the Redeemer facing south:
Ipanema and the Lake (2007)

The breathtaking natural beauty of the city (which mixes beaches, tropical forests, mountains, hills, ocean and bay) has its counterpart in the Carioca. Largely the result of what Brazilians refer to as miscegenação, or mixed races, and a beach lifestyle, the physical beauty of Cariocas is legendary. Just stroll down a street or just sitting at a botequim (as traditional bars are called) and eye candy will brighten up your days in the form of naturally beautiful women and handsome men, often scantily clad. Of course, some of these perfect bodies have been helped by science, but that doesn't detract from the fact that no other city on earth has such a high concentration of gorgeous bodies, perfect faces and sensual people as the Marvelous City.

From Christ the Redeemer facing west:
the Bay of Guanabara, the Sugar Loaf, Boatafogo and its
horseshoe-shaped cove (2007)

8. HATE: Brazilian red tape

For somebody used to the honors system so prevalent in the United States and in many parts of Europe, you will be shocked at the realization that the Brazilian government basically assumes that all its citizens are dishonest. As a consequence of this, any transaction you want to carry out (invest in real estate, start a business, become a resident, open a bank account...) requires you to produce an inordinately long list of documents, many of which requires each the production of another long list of documents. Most have to be obtained from quasi-government agencies known as cartórios, are not all inexpensive and take for ever to be produced. Woe betide you if one character is missing from one document, or your name is misspelled; you will have to start all over again. Patience is a virtue which, if you don't have it when you arrive in Brazil, you will learn to develop. (President Dilma Rousseff has appointed a cabinet member in charge of desburocratização or "unredtaping" similar to French President Hollande's efforts at simplification administrative - I wouldn't hold my breath at the success of any of these transatlantic endeavors)

9. LOVE/HATE: The informality/Lack of punctuality of the Carioca

The relaxed atmopshere of Rio de Janeiro means that you are not expected to dress up for most occasions. A T-shirt, bermuda shorts and flip-flops are perfectly acceptable in most cases. In the beach districts you can walk around, enter some restaurants, bars and grocery stores barefoot and with nothing on you but your tiny swimsuit (whose diminutive female version is referred to as "dental floss".) So refreshing that you feel in a permanent state of vacation.

The downside is that punctuality is a concept completely alien to Brazilians, especially Cariocas. Even in business settings. Set up a meeting for the next day at 10 am, and if people accept you will thing it's a done deal. You may be in for a big disappointment: nobody might show up at 10. When a Carioca agrees to a meeting, they are merely conveying that they are interested in seeing you again, whether on that allotted time or some other time, or simply that that they don't want to be rude and tell you they won't show up. For an American or a European this can be maddeningly frustrating.

10. LOVE: Incredible variety of cultural and sports offering

One can be easily awe-struck by the beauty of the Rio landscape as mentioned earlier.Less well-known is the sheer variety of museums, plays, shows, bookstores, art exhibits, concerts, cinemas available on any given day. When the federal government left for newly built Brasilia, Rio found itself with countless grand government buildings it didn't know what to do with. Many were turned into museums, and some often put on great shows. One that opened this week, part of the 450 years celebration, is at the old Post Office HQ in the old town, and it presents a great assortment of the amazing engravings and painting by French artist Debret who called Rio home for a decade in the early 19th century when the city went from sleepy colonial backwater to imperial capital and then capital of an independent country. Debret left us incredible detailed testimonies of every day life in Rio de Janeiro, along with historical events such as the only coronation of a European king in the Americas. Live music can be heard from basically everywhere, especially on weekends, from the Copacabana oceanfront to the bohemian district of Lapa. During Carnaval the energetic samba rhythms are hard to tune out. Sebos, as second-hand bookshops are known,  are a treasure trove of titles you will not find in the large retail chain stores such as Travessa or Saraiva. Theatre-wise, I prefer the West End and Broadway, but the quality of Rio's theatre offering is not to be scoffed at. An excellent production still playing is the musical Cazuza about a famous Brazilian singers from the 80s.

On the sports side, beach volley is  a great favorite on the beach across from my apartment (it will be the venue for that particular Olympic game). Frescobol can be seen the whole day. A few minutes down the beach towards the Copacabana Fort stand up paddle has become quite popular these last few years, as has slack lining where you balance on a rope tied between two palm trees. Hang-gliding for thrill seekers allows you to take in the stunning beauty of the city, and do I need to mention soccer which is a religion here (despite the calamity at last year's World Cup)?  Cariocas are way more sports oriented than culturally minded, but still there are newspaper stands at every street corner and the press offering is quite diversified and of surprisingly good quality (I couldn't live without O Globo here.)

Of course, I could go on for much longer. there are a few more things I positively abhor (such as the absurd prices, see my earlier post), and countless more that draw me to the country. My sincerest hope is that in the next few years the list of the latter lengthens, while the former are reduced significantly.


(The blogger has a second home in Rio de Janeiro where he spends part of the year. All the pictures were taken by him between 2007 and the publication of this post. When the blogger is not in residence, his penthouse can be rented. Check out the Airbnb listing, also available on TripAdvisor/Flipkey and Homeaway. You can also rent it straight from the blogger)

"Custo Brasil" or the Absurdly High Cost of Living in Brazil

RIO DE JANEIRO

How The Economist magazine
saw Brazil's prospects in 2009...

I have been visiting Brazil for ten years now, spending half of the three years between 2010-2012 in this city, and I am constantly flabbergasted at how ridiculously high the prices have become.

For my daily pleasure of reading O Globo I used to pay just R$1.00; I have now to fork out R$2.50, that is a 150% increase. In the same period of time its Paris equivalent Le Monde has only known a 50% increase. A Rio Metrô ticket costs now R$3.10 the exact equivalent of €1.00 whereas in Paris it costs...almost the same price: €1.10, and a subsidized price (for workers, students, senior citizens, unemployed) costs just half that. Yes, you have read right: a basic good such urban transportation costs 50% more in Rio (which knows of no subsidies or daily/monthly passes)  where average income is one-third that of Paris. This is complete madness and explains that riots broke out last June because of the bus fare hike.

In January 2003 when I arrived for the first time in the Marvelous City taxi rides were so cheap that it never crossed my mind to use buses. A taxi ride to Galeão international airport would cost as low as R$35. Now you'll be lucky if you can get it for less than R$100. A restaurant meal was so affordable that I rarely bothered to go to per-weight joints, a Brazilian institution. Now, a single dish at a buffet restaurant would cost you easily a  whopping R$15. Eating in New York is much cheaper, and what makes it even more scandalous is that Brazil is blessed with an efficient agriculture and a land where everything grows and is raised effortlessly. 

Currency exchange rate fluctuations are to blame in only a tiny proportion: when I arrived in Brazil in 2013 US$1 bought close to R$4, by last year it was down to R$1.6, now it has inched back to a more reasonable R$2.2. The euro has followed a similar pattern (the euro is now worth around R$3), making the country extremely expensive for foreigners. But even with a stable real, inflation and price levels are outrageously high for the locals as well (if not more so, since their income levels are much lower than foreigners'). This can be seen from the below table on the price increases I have witnessed over the years.

The only thing growing at double-digit figures in Brazil are prices

There are several reasons why prices are so high: poor infrastructure, red tape, high taxes, low productivity. I would single out two of these: high taxes and low worker productivity. High taxes are not in and of themselves a bad thing. If Brazilians were getting Scandinavian-level public services, that would be fine. But the sad truth is that Brazilians suffer the highest tax burden of any emerging economy and are rewarded with pitiful health care, education and infrastructure. Where does the money go, then? Ask the politicians, among the most corrupt in the world. Compounding the situation is the low productivity of the Brazilian worker. Now, I never expected a Protestant work ethic in Brazil the way we know it in Northern Europe or in the United States, but still, I  am flummoxed by how poorly educated, trained and motivated Brazilian employees tend to be. Of course, there are pockets of excellence here and there, but overall the average Brazilian employee has to wake up at 5 am every morning, spend an average of two hours to get to work, fearing to be mugged on the way. By the time the poorly educated Brazilian arrives at their poorly paid job, they are exhausted, and have only one thing on their mind: get through the day and head back home where a host of problems (violence, not enough money to make ends meet etc.) await them Are you surprised then that discharging their duties efficiently, optimally and with respect for the customer (a notion alien to most Brazilian companies) is not exactly their top priority?

But let me continue with my whining about insane prices. A broadband internet connection at one of the four major operators (Oi, Vivo, Tim, Claro) will cost you on average the equivalent of US$40. And that is for just the connection which, in many parts of the country, and even in Rio, is a haphazard affair. For the same price in the US and Europe you get true broadband connection, unlimited phone calls to fixed lines all over the world,  high-definition TV channels, a cell phone number with a monthly credit for calls and text messages. It is mind-boggling to see how much Brazilians are paying for so little. And still putting up with it. 

If you are an expatriate settling in Brazil, one of the first things you will do is make sure you have a decent health plan. And, here, you will have the shock of your life, especially if you hail from Europe. Sure, you can always rely on the Brazilian government's health service knows as SUS (probably short for SUCKS) but it is so dreadful that anybody with some discretionary income buys a private health plan. Brazil has world-class hospitals (such as the Sirio-Libanês in São Paulo or the Samaritano in Rio de Janeiro) but they don't come in cheap. And to ensure you get developed-world standards you'll need to pay premiums in  the range of hundreds of dollars per month. The best healthcare can even cost you north of US$1,000 per month! And health plans in Brazil do not cover medication which you have to pay out of your own pocket. 

For Americans and Europeans used to reasonable airfares, especially by low-cost companies, flying from Rio to São Paulo (roughly a 350-mile distance) will easily set you back between US$300 and US$1,000. A Paris-London airfare (covering a similar distance between the two most important European capital cities) can be found at a fraction of the Brazilian fare. And Europeans are way wealthier than Brazilians! There are times when it is cheaper to fly to Paris from Rio than to São Paulo.

One key difference between subway transport in Rio de Janeiro or São Paulo and their equivalent in New York, London or Paris is the number of people who use the ride to read newpapers, magazines or books in the northern hemisphere. In Brazil, a book-reading subway rider is a rare occurrence. That is due to the overall population's high illiteracy rate and the high cost of books. Go to any bookstore chain, such as Saraiva or Livraria da Travessa, and you'll be hard pressed to find a book costing less than R$30-40, if not more, which makes it way too expensive for a majority of Brazilians. (On the other hand, you can find true bargains in second-hand bookstores, or sebos as they are called in Brazil. Mere stalls on the sidewalk will offer you even better deals, another reflection of the law of supply and demand: with so few Brazilians used to reading, the only way book peddlers can sell their wares is by offering low prices - probably the only low prices you will ever find in Brazil!)  

You will purchase domestic appliance (pots and pans, irons, blenders, etc.) in Brazil only under duress. You will then grab the item and leave the store screaming at what can only be called highway robbery. And when you realize that the coffee maker you bought a few months ago suddenly stopped working and is good for the scrap heap, you will understand the pain of most Brazilians who can afford these high-ticket items only through credit which, in addition, they have to repay at punishingly high rates. (Another Brazilian oddity is that most people who buy on credit repay it through monthly installments - I was bewildered when at a McDonald's restaurant I was asked in how many months I wanted to pay my hamburger. Yes, prices are so high in Brazil and people's incomes so low, that the only way for some to afford a hamburger is to pay a few cents per month for the period of a year!) 

Rio's 5-star hotel rates are higher than in Paris, London or New York. And as for residential real estate, prices have skyrocketed to reach the surreal. Prices in the city's South Side (Zona Sul) have been going up by 30-40% per year for the past four years. For instance,a small one-bedroom apartment in Copacabana, shoddily built, with wires hanging out, hot because buildings are all built next to one another with no ventilation - and we are in a beach district!) will easily make you poorer by an astounding $8,000-10,000 a sq meter! And maintenance charges have gone through the roof: for a similar apartment expect to pay hundreds of dollars per month! (Property tax, though, is still affordable.) One of the reasons housing maintenance costs are high is due to another Brazilian oddity: the need for every residential building to have several doormen working different shifts to ensure 24 x 7 availability. And with wages shooting up (if only to offset inflation) homeowners have only one option: cough up ever more. (Add to that yet another Brazilian oddity: coop board presidents are exempt from paying maintenance so their share is picked up by the other homeowners pushing their home maintenance bill further up.)

The latter is clearly the result of a bubble in the making similar to what we saw in Spain and in the US. Those who are selling now are those who bought cheap several years ago and are cashing in now quietly before moving their money away. Real estate buyers are fools, paying today before weeping tomorrow.

...and how it sees Brazil now

In general one can summarize the absurd prices in Brazil the following way: first-world prices for third-world quality. I am afraid that when that statue of Christ the Redeemer  falls back to Earth, it will not be on its pedestal on top of Corcovado but further down, trodden and trampled. The day after the hangover will be painful for some.

(The blogger has shared many aspects of his Brazilian experience in several blog posts: on Brazil's colonial towns, Lula's "third" victory at the polls,  and his thoughts on the country, HR and technology.

He has also published in Portuguese a blog on HR systems in Brazil.)

(The blogger has a second home in Rio de Janeiro where he spends part of the year. When he is not in residence, his penthouse can be rented. Check out the Airbnb listing, also available on TripAdvisor/Flipkey and Homeaway. You can also rent it straight from the blogger)

Colonial towns: Brazil's hidden gems

The Imperial Palace, former homes of  viceroys, kings and,
when the country was a monarchy, the Emperors of Brazil 

RIO DE JANEIRO
Ask most people what images they have of Brazil, and the four S's are conjured up: sex, sand, sun and soccer. While there's little doubt that the long Brazilian coastline is among the most beautiful ones in the world, that Brazilians have elevated the Beautiful Game into an art form and that the obsession with physical beauty is translated into perfect bodies galore (arrived at through nature or science) which  in turn mean a constant incentive to engage in Brazilians' favorite other sport, I would claim that there is a fifth S which is often overlooked, even by Brazilians: hiStory. That is a shame because throughout the five centuries since Brazil was conquered and settled by the Portuguese, they have dotted the continent-sized landscape  of the country with beautiful palaces, squares and churches which remain well-preserved to the day, thanks to Brazil never having had big wars fought on its territory nor particularly destructive natural disasters.

Since most visitors to Brazil are likely to enter through Rio de Janeiro, the country's gateway, let's start here, as I did in January 2003 leaving  behind me a snowed over Paris. (It was a historic date since Lula was being inaugurated as the first Brazilian president to hail from the country's majority poor people) Most visitors tend to congregate on the southern city beaches of Copacabana and Ipanema not realizing that just a 20-minute drive north, downtown Rio is packed with vestiges of its ancient past as colonial, imperial, royal and independent capital.

The Candelaria church stands its ground
amidst Downtown Rio's highrise buildings

The Renaissance-cum-Baroque Candelaria church is a splendid example of colonial Brazil, and one of its most opulent churches. It was initially built by a sea captain to express his gratitude for having survived a shipwreck, which explains the large panels above the nave. Nearby is the Paço Imperial or Imperial Palace with a long and distinguished history. Originally the residence of the Portuguese governor of Brazil (when Rio became capital of the colony in the mid 18th-century) it became in 1808 a royal residence when the Portuguese court, fleeing from Napoleon's invading armies, was transferred to Rio lock, stock and barrel (meaning King, Government and bureaucracy.) For the first time in history, a colonial city became the capital of the empire it belonged to. It's as if at the height of the British Empire, Queen Victoria had decided to move her court and the British Government to Toronto, Cape Town, Cairo or Hong Kong. This was the first and only time that a European monarch ruled from the Americas as well as from a colony. And when Brazil became independent in 1822 under the only local monarchy ever to exist in post-Columbian Americas,  Rio remained the capital city of the newly independent country which, unlike the nearby Spanish possessions which splintered off into separate states, remained a unified country under Dom Pedro I who ruled from this Paço Imperial. It was from the Palace's steps that Dom Pedro I's granddaughter, Princess Isabel, proclaimed the Freedom from Slavery Act in 1888. That enlightened gesture didn't bring her family good luck as the next year saw the monarchy abolished and the establishment of a (undemocratic) republic. The palace is now a museum/exhibition center, bookshop and café. Landmarks from royal rule in Brazil  abound in the area, incongruously mixed with modern skyscrapers in a  typically Brazilian disregard for architectural harmony. Particularly charming is the cobblestone street known as Travessa do Comércio lined by beautiful two-story colonial townhouses and which is accessed from the Palace through an arch known as Arco de Teles. For those fond of literature, many of the books written by Machado do Assis, Brazil's greatest writer, are set here as is, more recently, Era no tempo do rei, by Ruy Castro, a contemporary Carioca writer/commentator/journalist.  Between Old Rio in the Downtown area and the southern beaches (known to locals as Zona Sul), remnants of colonial life can be found. One of my favorites is the exquisite church NS da Gloria  (Our Lady of Glory) which commands lovely views over the sea-reclaimed Flamengo park.

Glorious church in Gloria

The Lapa Arches and Viaduct on top of which
runs the Santa Teresa tram known as the "bondinho"

The hilltop church, one of the finest examples of religious colonial architecture in Brazil, dates from the early 18th century and was the favorite of the Royal Family upon their arrival in 1808.  Seeing it suddenly emerge as you drive by, or magically lit at night, is quite eery.

Another great landmark is the Arcos da Lapa or Lapa Viaduct which gives the delightfully shabby  neighborhood of Lapa its distinctive air. Weekend nights are traffic free and the bohemian atmosphere of the area where students, artists, working class and posh Cariocas mix freely, is quite a heady mix, with or without the help of a caipirinha and to the accompaniment of  frantic samba rhythms.

I could spend acres of prose on the Marvelous City as Rio is known to the native Cariocas, so I'll stop here and move 200 miles southwest, towards the stateline with São Paulo. Here lies a jewel of a place: Paraty. Amerigo Vespucci, who gave his name to the American continents, said, when he spotted this shoreline of jutted peninsulas and secluded beaches, "If there were paradise on earth, it wouldn't be far from here."  And that is no hyperbole. Until recently the only way to get to Paraty was by boat; the scenic road winds along emerald-green mountains and takes about four hours between Rio and Paraty where I arrived in the last days of 2008 in less than glorious shape, bending over and relieving myself of my breakfast from where I had absorbed it: I had forgotten to take my motion-sickness pill. That was the only bad memory I have of the place. The pousada where I stayed was well located: a few minutes walk from both the old town across a narrow river, the Perequê-Açu, and a dazzling beach with pristine water. The views from my room on the bay and the town were breathtaking: few things beat sipping a caipirinha (the local cachaça or sugarcane liquor from which the drink is made is quite famous and I must say rightly so.) Its geographical seclusion meant that Paraty remains to this day both a great colonial relic and beach paradise, still safe from the horrendous hordes of mass tourism. But for how long? I'm pretty sure that in my lifetime Paraty will go the way of Dubrovnik, Prague and many other Disneyfied places. The town's irregular cobblestone streets are known as pés-de-moleque (street urchin's feet) and are often washed clean by rains or high tides, giving the city a tropical Venetian look. You can tell tourists from locals easily: the former tend to watch their feet as they negotiate the irregularly-shaped stones to avoid any mishap, whereas the natives just walk indifferently and never miss one. "How do you manage it," I asked them?

And they explained that you shouldn't step on the stones, but rather slide on them until your heel gets a firm grasp of the interstice between two stones. Then you shift to the other foot and repeat the same exercize. It takes a little while to get the hang of it, but after that you can just go about your business, enjoying the beauty of the place without ever risking to stumble.

Town view from the Perpetual Defensor Fort rebuilt in 1822, the year Brazil became independent

What makes Paraty so beautiful is not so much the architecture itself which, attractive as it is, isn't dazzling, but the homogeneous nature of it, the building's earthly colors and texture that magnify the natural beauty around it.

Let's now cross this gigantic country and hop 1,400 miles north towards the equator, towards Recife and Olinda which I visited over Christmas 2007. Recife, a  friend recently told me, has the largest colonial area of all Brazilian cities. It may be so but the day I spent there what I found overwhelming was the poverty and filth of this industrial city so by the mid afternoon I hailed a taxi and got back to Olinda, the sister city a few miles away.

Recife looms in the horizon from Olinda

The town's historic center sits on a hill overlooking the Atlantic and Recife.The twisting streets of colorful old houses and a plethora of scenic churches in various degrees of repair and decay make this well-preserved town a charming place to visit.

NS do Carmo church built in the late 1500's but rebuilt, like most other buildings, after the Dutch burnt the town down in 1631 

With New Year's Even upon us with a group of tourists I met we complied with the Brazilian tradition of seeing the New Year clad in white, as you can see in the picture where Dominique (a French teacher) and I are sipping from a coco gelado. Reveillon is a much tamer affair in Olinda than in Rio whose New Year's Eve bacchanals are as famous. (Olinda's Carnival, though, is considered as the second best in Brazil after Rio's.) By 2 am the streets were largely empty, which suited me fine as I was flying out the next day and needed some rest.

The Blue House, just down the street from the pousada where I stayed

Ceiling from St. Francis Convent in Olinda

Salvador's Pelourinho district

Of all Brazil's major cities, Salvador is the one with the largest and best preserved colonial neighborhoods (São Paulo, established almost at the same time time as Rio, has quite a few vestiges of its past in its old town dwarfed by the sheer size of South America's largest city.) Salvador's Pelourinho, with its African heritage, beautifully preserved houses, upper and lower towns was  immortalized in Jorge Amado's book, Dona Flor And Her Two Husbands which saucily and vividly captured the sights, sounds, smells and sensuality (another four  S's!) of Brazil's first capital city like nobody else - and it was adapted in a great movie made in 1976 with Sonia Braga. (I still cannot believe that he never won the Nobel Prize for Literature, when so many obscure and mediocre writers have.)

In terms of sheer density of beautiful colonial towns, nothing beats the state of Minas Gerais in the Brazilian hinterland which I visited earlier this year.  Scattered across the state, colloquially known as Minas (and from which hails Dilma Rousseff, Brazil's soon-to-be first female president ) are exquisite towns of wich the jewel in the crown is undoubtedly Ouro Preto. The City of Black Gold reached its heyday in the mid-18th century with a population of 100,000 people (New York then only had 50,000) before the gold boom petered out. The town, a UNESCO mankind heritage landmark, was the state capital until the end of the 19th century and still regains symbolically that status once a year when the state government moves there for a day. Being downgraded was a blessing in disguise as it helped the town preserve its colonial splendor.

NS do Carmo church on top of the hill,and to the left the Grand Hotel, the only 20th century building in Ouro Preto, by Brazil's most famous architect, Oscar Niemeyer who at age 102 is still working

Ouro Preto is cut by deep ravines and divided into several hills upon which narrow, crooked streets have been built. The gradient on some of these streets is so vertiginous that one can almost speak of vertical streets. Almost every hill is topped by a church such as the NS do Carmo across from which I stayed in a pousada occupying an old home. Since not all slopes of a hill have been built up, this with the surrounding mountain lend a unique and soothing bucolic atmosphere to the town. You feel, you are, in the countryside, as well as in a town with all urban amenities.

Church of NS das Mercês seen from my room at the Pousada Chico Rei

A close up of NS das Mercês

The Church of St. Francis of Assis is considered as one of the most important pieces of Brazilian colonial art, the work of prodigy artist Aleijandinho who carved the soapstone medallion to the cannon waterspouts and the military two-cross bar on the façade.

Fountain on the way to Santa Ifigênia Church. The long, vertiginously high way I should add

Traveling through the colonial towns of Minas Gerais is no easy task if you're a solo traveler relying on public transportation. Inter-town bus lines are few and fewer between with a resolute attempt not to coordinate their schedules: thus to visit a nearby town may mean waking up at 6:00 am and not being back before 9:00 pm. So I rented a car service, at the expected extortionate rate, to take me on a rainy morning from Ouro Preto to   Congonhas, further south. Congonhas is a small industrial town which has been saved from complete obscurity by the extraordinary collection of lifesized statues of the Old Testament Prophets outside the local church. They are considered as Aleijandinho's masterpiece and to be able to walk around them and see them perform their miraculous ballet is worth the trip to the town.

Aleijandinho's Prophets in Congonhas reminded me of the outdoors  statues in Florence. And like Michaelangelo's David, they will soon be transferred under the roof of a nearby museum. I was lucky to be one of the last to see the originals where they stood for over two centuries. just as I was lucky to see the Lions of the Sacred Way in the Greek island of Delos before they were removed to an indoors location  

One the 12 items that make up Brazil's best known work of art. When he worked on them, Aleijandinho was old, sick and crippled. Fingerless, he had his tools strapped to his hands  

Late morning saw me resisting my driver's entreaties to drive me to Sao João del Rei (at another outrageous rate) and asking him to drop me at the local bus station where I knew there should be a bus within an hour for my last destination, which I reached a little around two pm, heading straight for the Ponte Real, the town's only 4-star hotel. Of all the colonial towns of Minas, SJDR is the only one that has managed to grow a modern city that sits next to the old one in a complete symbiotic relationship. (It is also the home of the powerful Neves political dynasty)

Church of NS do Carmo designed in 1732 by Aleijandinho (Brazilians seem to be lacking in creativity when it comes to church naming) 

Baroque St Francis of Assisi, south of the canal. Aleijandinho did the sculpture of the Virgin  above the door. 

St. Francis is a gem. The church's oval shape, which can be seen both from outside and inside, is stunning, as well as well as the polychromated wood sculptures. I visited it one afternoon under a scorching sun. 

Typical Aleijadinho cherub with
chubby cheeksand wavy hair

A Beetle passes St Francis

Ten miles down the valley from SJDR lies one of the prettiest towns I have ever seen. Smaller than Ouro Preto, its quaint colonial houses stand against a dramatic background of Serra de São José mountains and, when lucky as I was, stunningly blue sky. They sure don't make pretty towns like Tiradentes anymore. And to reach it is on a  par with its quaintness and charm. You board a rickety, smoke-billowing 19th-century train which chugs its way along a beautiful bucolic scenery.

Despite the less-than-discreet presence of sundry antique stores and whimsical boutiques, the town retains a powerful allure.

St. Antony's Church named after the town's patron saint. The frontispiece is by (who else?)
Aleijandinho. The church has an stunning all-gold interior

At the end of what was by all accounts a lovely day marred by only a mediocre lunch, I took the chugging train back to SJDR and the next day I was back in Rio, closing the loop on what had been the most comprehensive and satisfying of all my "colonial" trips. Visit Brazil and miss these urban and historical gems at your own loss. (Another loop was also closed as Lula, after an amazing 8 years in powers in which the country surged to big-power status, economic prosperity, lesser income inequality making him the most popular elected leader in the world with an astounding 80% approval rating, was about to stand down)

(The blogger has a second home in Rio de Janeiro where he spends part of the year. All the pictures were taken by him. When the blogger is not in residence, his penthouse can be rented. Check out the Airbnb listing, also available on TripAdvisor/Flipkey and Homeaway. You can also rent it straight from the blogger)