Curitiba Day 1

After about an hour's delay, we arrived in Curitiba. It was about 8am and drizzly, so not too bad a walk. We stopped about halfway for some breakfast, and then decided to also pop into a shopping center to check on getting a Brazilian SIM card. Unsuccessful, we finished the ten minute walk to the hotel and thankfully were able to get checked in early.

After a shower and time to make a plan for the day, we went out and got an Uber to our farthest location, the Museu Oscar Niemeyer. Shaped like a black eye on a yellow rectangular pedestal, the museum is dedicated to Oscar Niemeyer, a Brazilian architect who designed much of Brasilia. There was also a pond around the building with metal structures that looked like lotus flowers. A bit short on time, we didn't stay long and made our way back to a different shopping center to try for the SIM card again.

After about an hour, we still, frustratingly did not get a SIM, so we cut our losses and got a late lunch while organizing an e-SIM. Once we left the shopping mall, it was raining so we got another quick Uber to save a 40 minute walk in the rain to Torre Panoramico. The building looks similar to an air control tower. We bought our tickets and took the elevator up. We were greeted with a surprisingly good view over Curitiba. It hadn't felt like we'd gone very high, but we had 360° views over the entire city. In the viewing area there were some landmarks pointed out that we were able to find such as large parks, churches, and other important buildings. It was cloudy and we could see storm clouds in the distance.

We decided to walk after our panoramic views back to the historic center to see some of the sites we looked up earlier in the day. There were two streets in the center of the historic area: Rua das Flores and Rua XV de Novembro. The streets and paths are cobbled with white and black flower patterns and the buildings are pastel colors with white accents. Quite a few of the more standard looking buildings had some beautiful graffiti reminding me of Bogota. We diverted up a couple of side streets following the pretty buildings and happened upon the Catedral Basílica Menor. It looks like a standard community church on the outside, but inside there were beautiful greens and golds all over the vaulted ceiling and walls. It looked like mass had recently finished so we didn't walk around much.

We continued walking down Rua XV de Novembro and it brought us to a small square with some lovely buildings around it. The one in the center was Sesc Paço da Liberdade. It was a tan building with clocks and small domes. We went inside up to the third floor and walked around a rather interesting art gallery. The female artist had displays of broken porcelain, painted slices of cake, old metal sinks with various styles of dirty glassware arranged, and what looks like was a performance piece of eating a chicken. There were pictures of her eating the chicken, and the carcass was on display in a glass case. It was definitely funky and not the kind of art that I fully understand or can appreciate.

The sun was going down, and we were feeling a bit tired, so we stopped for some açai before finishing our walk back to the hotel. We fully intended on going back out to find some dinner, but we got caught up in looking at things, responding to emails and messages, and I also did some reading, so before we knew it, it was late and time to get some sleep before our Serra Verde train adventure tomorrow.Read more