Days and Nights in Sao Paulo

Lonely Planet calls Sao Paulo a "monster. The gastronomic, fashion and finance capital of Latin America ... home to 19 million people and more skyscrapers than could ever possibly be counted." (MF Tree, of course, tried and stopped at about 200) I'd call it more of a tsunami. While Rio's pleasures were more drawn out, lackadaisical and a little sleepy, Sampa came at us in a splendid sensory gush. We were hosted by the fantastic P. and M., who love food as much as we do. We should also mention their wonderful little dog, T. and the uber-helpful and lovely D. We were blown away by their warmth and hospitality, and aspire to be as good hosts to our friends, and friends of friends ourselves. There may be no better city in Brasil - Latin America or the world, if you ask Paulistas - as far as food is concerned. The same also goes for museums, cultural happenings and the mad rush of people. As passionate city-slickers, we absolutely loved it.

Everything that we saw was a highlight. Avenida Paulista - where the beautiful and wealthy of Sao Paulo can be found on weekdays. Also home to the high-calibre Museu de Arte de Sao Paulo (MASP) and FIESP (can't remember the translation. Also MF Tree corrects me - it's FIESP SESI SP!) We caught an excellent (mostly) photographic exhibit at FIESP chronicling Brasilia* through the years. From the days of its rapid construction under the eagle eye of Niemeyer, to visions of a utopian land in the middle of the country, to modern installations showing its present day condition in literal and metaphorical forms. The photographers included Marcel Gautherot, Peter Scheier and Thomaz Farkas. At MASP we were treated to modern German paintings, the progress of Romanticism through the ages and an exhibit capturing portrait painting at different points in history. All well-curated and displayed, although the English translations were a wee bit odd. Also on Avenida Paulista is the beautiful Livraria Cultural - a bookstore par excellence where we spent yet another lazy afternoon after a mouth-watering lunch (more on that later.)

Another lazy day was spent strolling through Parque do Ibirapuera and visiting the Museu de Arte Moderna (MAM) and the Bienal - a twice yearly exhibit of current international art. Also littering the Ibirapuera landscape are Niemeyer buildings (TFF gushes.) A verdant patch with varied play spaces for children in the middle of concrete Sampa, Ibirapuera is also an art oasis. Two of the spaces we mentioned already, but it also holds a museum of Afro-Brasilian art and a performance space for theater and music designed by Niemeyer. We're saving those for our next time.

Sao Paulo's Centro is studded with Colonial style gems. In our roamings around we saw the massive Catedral da Se, the ornate and peaceful Sao Bento - which also has a super bakery! producing some rather 'divine' bread and cookies - the Estacao Luz, the Pinacoteca, Praca da Luz and the truly awesome Mercado Municipal (reserved for our food post.) The Pinacoteca is our favourite museum in SP. Home to some fine Brasilian art, we were especially taken with the contemporary Brasilian sculpture and paintings. It also has some great rotating exhibits, our favourite from the current stock was one on photographs from the 1910-1950s by the Vargas brothers, a pair of Peruvian brothers from Arequipa.

Lastly, we had a revelatory look at the Sao Paulo night panorama from the Edificio Italia, which has the Terraco Italia - a trendy restaurant and bar at the top. Of course, we won't forget this in our food post!

More on food next! We take our leave for now, thinking about the lilting sounds of Chico Buarque, a Brasilan singer-songwriter - part of the MPB (Musica Populares Brasil) movement, introduced to us by M.


*Constructred in 3 years, Brasil's capital was designed by Oscar Niemeyer, with the ideas of the school of modernist architecture in mind, which exposed and presented solutions through urban planning for the most serious problems presented by the industrial revolution - mass migration to cities, bad housing, reduction of green areas, excessive pollution and noise, improper transport leading to long commutes. The solutions included zone planning, with each zone being a self contained unit with space to work, play and live. Brasilia today though, likely thanks to its isolated location in the bare center of the country, is not the vibrant city that its creators imagined and remains only the seat of government.