São Paulo Day 4

Today we recreated the walking tour that we went on our first full day in São Paulo. This time, we went inside the buildings that we visited from the outside. We also got to see many of the buildings from different angles because we walked around more and weren't impeded by the large group.

We took the metro back to Republica and while in the station, we noticed barriers up. We knew that some pre-carnaval activities started today and it looked like the metro was going to get busy later on. We had to go through a couple of diversions inside the station, but eventually got out of the station back into the sunshine. The streets around Praça Republica were closed off and there wasn't a lot of foot traffic yet so we were able to move around quicker.

We visited the Circolo Italiano, the building made by the German for Italian immigrants, and the Copan building, the building made by Oscar Nehemeyer, first. We got to see more of the wave in the Copan building than we saw with the guide. It was easier to see the full shape of the building where we stopped rather than where the guide took us. We continued our walk to Paróquia Nossa Senhora da Consolaçã. I love this church. The way the exterior looks reminds me of a tower on a princess castle in a Disney movie. Inside the artwork was pretty spectacular with deep blues and greens with gold. The green marble columns added a dramatic touch to the paintings too.

The next stop was the library, Biblioteca Mário de Andrade. We think they closed the fenced area because of the precautions for Carnaval revelers, so we didn't get as close to the building as last time and we couldn't go inside, but I did spot more of the word 'library' in different languages on the path outside the library because I knew to look for it after our guided tour. After that we went back to the Theatro Municipal de São Paulo as well as a few government buildings like city hall. We got just as close to these buildings as before and were able to spot the things that were pointed out to us on the tour.

We stopped at Igreja Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos Homens Pretos, the yellow church, and walked past the Galeria do Rock on our way to Ponto Chic. We each had a Bauru sandwich, native to São Paulo. It's a French roll hollowed out a bit with four different cheeses, roast beef, fresh tomato and pickles. It was a nice sandwich and it came quick which was great because we missed breakfast.

After that we went to the Catedral Metropolitana de São Paulo and visited the crypt as well as walked around the inside. It was a huge building inside and we looked for the Amazon animal Easter eggs throughout the church. We spotted animals like toucans, lizards, and armadillos. This church also holds the largest organ in South America and spreads along the entire back wall behind the main altar. Down in the crypt, all of the bishops of the church are buried. Many of them were originally born in Portugal and moved to São Paulo. The red bricks on the vaulted ceiling contrasted with the black stones for the graves.

Directly in front of the cathedral is the Praça de Se as well as Marco Zero de São Paulo. We had a proper look at the mark and noticed the names of all the different states of Brazil along the sides. We visited the Pateo do Collegio and Condomínio do Edifício Martinelli taking our time to look at the outside of the buildings and think about what the guide told us. The Martinelli building is definitely one of my favorites from the tour. I love the different sections of the building that lead to the lighter section at the top.

Once our walking tour was done, we decided to walk to Pinacoteca de São Paulo and Estação da Luz. The Luz station is right next to Pinacoteca museum. On our way, we stopped and had a juice while listening to the last five minutes of the England v Scotland rugby game. So disappointing they came so close. We finished the walk to the station and museum. The station was modelled after the station in London and we could really tell. It even had a mini Big Ben at the far end. Before heading into Luz, we visited Pinacoteca. It was a big building, much bigger on the inside that it looks, and is made of predominantly red bricks. There were lots of white accents and columns throughout the interior as well, but that may just be because it matched the vibe for the art galleries. We didn't plan to spend very long here, so just popped our heads into a few of the galleries. Each gallery had a main theme and then smaller themes within the gallery that tied together. For example, one was indigenous artwork but themes of people, colonization, and relationships were throughout the gallery. Once we had a quick explore through the galleries, we walked across the street to the Luz station. The inside looked just like King's Cross. It took us a bit of time, but eventually we found our way down to the metro station and walked for a good ten minutes underground before we got to the yellow line that would take us back towards Paulista Avenue.

Once we finished the metro trip, we walked along Paulista to the Fiesp - Federação das Indústrias do Estado de São Paulo. This is a cultural center that we thought had rooftop access for free. Sadly it didn't, but there was live music as well as a couple of small art galleries. One we visited was all about plants and I loved the contrast of the brightly colored plants and flowers with the dark room. It really made the plants and flowers stand out. Defeated in our viewpoint plans, we walked back to Bebeto's place, grabbed our bags, said our farewells and then made our way back up the street (uphill unfortunately) to our hostel.

Once we were settled in at the Ryanair of hotels, we went for some dinner. A couple blocks away a place called POP Vegan stood out so we went there. I ordered a falafel burger and onion rings and Allan had the all you can eat pizza option. There were so many different vegan pizzas, it was impressive. Allan nearly sampled all of them and had over 12 slices of pizza easily. He even let me try each of them so I didn't feel left out of the pizza eating. After dinner, we went back to our hotel and watched Blink Twice before bed.Læs mere