Brazil – São Paulo Greater City (São Paulo, Santos) April 22-24, May 1-2, 2022.
SAO PAULO (Saint Paul) is an alpha global city, the municipality of São Paulo is the most populous city proper in Brazil, the Americas, the Western Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere, as well as the world’s 4th largest city proper by population, It is the largest Portuguese-speaking city in the world. São Paulo State is the most populous and wealthiest state in Brazil. The city’s metropolitan area is the 12th most populous on Earth. The process of conurbation between the metropolitan areas around the Greater São Paulo (Campinas, Santos, Jundiaí, Sorocaba and São José dos Campos) created the São Paulo Macrometropolis, a megalopolis with more than 30 million inhabitants, one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world.
The city holds events like the São Paulo Jazz Festival, São Paulo Art Biennial, the Brazilian Grand Prix, São Paulo Fashion Week, the ATP Brasil Open, the Brasil Game Show and the Comic Con Experience. São Paulo’s LGBTQ Pride parade rivals the New York City Pride march as the largest LGBTQ pride parade in the world.
São Paulo is a cosmopolitan, melting pot city, home to the largest Arab, Italian, Japanese, and Portuguese diasporas, with examples including ethnic neighborhoods of Bixiga, Bom Retiro, and Liberdade. São Paulo is also home to the largest Jewish population in Brazil, with about 75,000 Jews. In 2016, inhabitants of the city were native to over 200 countries. People from the city are known as paulistanos, The city, which is also colloquially known as Sampa or Terra da Garoa (Land of Drizzle), is known for its unreliable weather, the size of its helicopter fleet, its architecture, gastronomy, severe traffic congestion, and skyscrapers.
History. Founded in 1554 by the Jesuit college of twelve priests, for the next two centuries, São Paulo developed as a poor and isolated village. Because they were extremely poor, the Paulistas could not afford to buy African slaves, as did other Portuguese colonists. The Jesuits were expelled from the city in 1640. The two groups had frequently come into conflict because of the Jesuits’ opposition to the domestic slave trade in Indians. When the gold ran out in the late 18th century, São Paulo shifted to growing sugar cane. After Brazil became independent from Portugal in 1822, important dates were a law school, and coffee production, and after 1869, a connection to the port of Santos by railway and São Paulo became the point of convergence of all railroads from the interior of the state.
After 1887, it began to receive a large number of immigrants, largely Italians, Japanese and Portuguese peasants, São Paulo went from a regional center to a national metropolis, becoming industrialized and reaching its first million inhabitants in 1928. The height of the coffee period is represented by the construction of the second Estação da Luz (the present building).
Industrialization followed the coffee plantation. In 1932, the population rose against a coup d’état by Getúlio Vargas after four protesting students were killed by the federal government and the São Paulo revolt was militarily crushed on 2 October 1932 after 87 days of fighting and 934 official deaths,
Geography. The city is on a plateau beyond the Coastal Range known as the Brazilian Highlands, with an average elevation of around 799 meters (2,621 ft) above sea level and 70 kilometers from the Atlantic Ocean leading to the port city of Santos. The local rivers became heavily polluted and the Billings and Guarapiranga reservoirs in the city’s southern outskirts are used for power generation, water storage and leisure activities, such as sailing. The north contains Cantareira State Park which protects a large part of the metropolitan São Paulo water supply.
Climate is a humid subtropical climate with January through March temperatures ranging between 19 °C and 28 °C. In winter, temperatures range between 12 and 22 °C . The summer is warm and rainy. Rainfall is abundant, annually averaging 1,454 millimeters (57.2 in), Due to the altitude, there are only few hot nights.
Population – 2010 11,244,369 with white 60.6%, multiracial 30.5%, Black people 6.5%,
50% have full or partial Italian ancestry. São Paulo has more descendants of Italians than any Italian city (the largest city of Italy is Rome, with 2.8 million inhabitants). In the early twentieth century, Italian was spoken almost as much as Portuguese which influenced the formation of the São Paulo dialect of today. Three million Paulistano’s have some origin in Portugal. The Jewish colony is more than 80,000 people in São Paulo and is concentrated mainly in Higienópolis and Bom Retiro. São Paulo is not only home to the largest Japanese diaspora, over 1.5 million Japanese descendants live in São Paulo, but it also has over 600 Japanese restaurants (20% more than “churrascarias,”
Safety. Between 2004 and 2009 the homicide rate dropped from 20.8 to 10.8 murders per 100,000 inhabitants, an example of how big cities can reduce crime.
Economy. During two World Wars and the Great Depression, coffee exports were critically affected. This led wealthy coffee farmers to invest in industrial activities that turned São Paulo into Brazil’s largest industrial hub.
Sexual diversity. It is home to a prominent self-identifying gay, bisexual and transgender community, with 9.6% of the male population and 7% of the female population declaring themselves to be non-heterosexual. The annual São Paulo Gay Pride Parade is considered the biggest pride parade in the world
By 1993, 19.8% of São Paulo’s population lived in favelas, compared to 5.2% in 1980. Today, it is estimated that 2.1 million Paulistas live in favelas, which represents about 11% of the metropolitan area’s population.
Get Around. It is a big city and distance long. I walked at least 15 km to see all the following. I tried to buy a multi ride pass, couldn’t and resorted (like most Brazilians) to buy single tickets. The metro has several lines and serves a huge geographic area. Rides are 4.5 BR each.
Day 1
I arrived in Sao Paulo after a 10-hour bus ride from Sao Joao del Rei. After a coffee, I started a big walk/metro about to see everything in north SP. During my walk, I passed many homeless people and several tent encampments.
Museum of Sacred Art. Nice polychromes but the paintings get tiring. Good folk art pieces. Free
Bom Retiro is a neighborhood in the central region São Paulo. It is known for its commerce, for being the place where Sport Club Corinthians Paulista was founded , and for being the neighborhood of the organized crowd and samba school Gaviões da Fiel.
Its name originates from the “Chácara do Bom Retiro”, one of those destined for the recreation of rich families in the 19th century, including the imperial family.
Bom Retiro also housed the first building in Brazil with an automobile assembly line, Ford do Brasil in 1921.
Bom Retiro is relatively extensive and borders the neighborhoods of Santana , Ponte Grande, Ponte Pequena, Canindé, Pari, Luz, and Campos Elísios It has three metro stations: Luz , Tiradentes, and Armenia. Wide and busy roads pass through the neighborhood, such as: Avenida Tiradentes, Avenida do Estado, and Avenida Santos Dumont. Rua José Paulino is an important stronghold for the clothing trade.
It is a multicultural neighborhood, with people of different origins, mainly Italian, Jewish, Greek, Korean, and also Bolivian. About 70% of the local commerce is managed by Koreans and their descendants.
I walked past many small industrial sewing machine operations and then blocks of high end women’s gowns and other clothing.
I ended up walking towards the Luz station to get the metro and saw 3 museums close by:
Estación Pinacoteca. In a nice building, the first floor exhibited the work of Adrana Varijo, that was interesting but not likable. The second floor had a much wider range of Brazilian artists of the 20th century, again littl that I enjoyed.
The took forever to enter: bag storage, vaccination check, buy tickets, long line for security. Free
Museum of the Portuguese Language. Four floors of high tech exhibits showed the derivation of the language and how it spread around the globe to Portugals colonies (Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Goa, Timor Leste). Unfortunately the QR code for English did not work well and I understood little of what was said, However, it appeared to be relatively simple info that most Brazilians would know. The museum should really be in English with Portugues subtitles. Free
Picture Gallery (Pinacoteca). Mostly about the resistance exhibited in 4 jail cells, a time line and several rooms detailing different periods of suppression, but again all was in Portugues so I understood little The top floor has mostly are not related to the resistance movement but little was interesting. Free
One exhibit was on crack pipes. Just outside the building I passed about 15 guys actively smoking crack, using pipes very similar to those in the display.
Sao Paulo Luz Station. This lovely 2-story building has a large clock tower. the front lobby is surprising narrow and most of the station is taken up by the several train and few metro lines.
I then took the metro form Luz only one stop (but 5 kms away) to:
Memorial da America Latina. The only sign was in Braille! The consisted of several white buildings with black glass, all of interesting arechitecture: Salon of Tiradentes, Simon Bolivar Auditorium and a round 4-story building. All were locked and couldn’t be entered.
Casa Mário de Andrade.(1893 – 1945) was a Brazilian poet, novelist, musicologist, art historian and critic, and photographer. He wrote one of the first and most influential collections of modern Brazilian poetry, Paulicéia Desvairada (Hallucinated City), published in 1922. He has had considerable influence on modern Brazilian literature, and as a scholar and essayist—he was a pioneer of the field of ethnomusicology—his influence has reached far beyond Brazil.
Andrade was a central figure in the avant-garde movement of São Paulo for twenty years. Trained as a musician and best known as a poet and novelist, Andrade was personally involved in virtually every discipline that was connected with São Paulo modernism. His photography and essays on a wide variety of subjects, from history to literature and music, were widely published. He was the driving force behind the Week of Modern Art, the 1922 event that reshaped both literature and the visual arts in Brazil, and a member of the avant-garde “Group of Five.”
After working as a music professor and newspaper columnist he published his great novel, Macunaíma, in 1928. Work on Brazilian folk music, poetry, and other concerns followed unevenly, often interrupted by Andrade’s shifting relationship with the Brazilian government. At the end of his life, he became the founding director of São Paulo’s Department of Culture, formalizing a role he had long held as a catalyst of the city’s—and the nation’s—entry into artistic modernity.
This is the small house Andrade lived in. There are few belongings and many photos, a music room with a piano and most of the upstairs was empty. Free
Museum of Sexual Diversity. I didn’t learn much new but again most was in Portuguese. Same sex couples make up 11% of Sao Paulo’s population.
Praça da República is a park and public square that covers several city blocks between Rua Pedro Américo, Rua Vinte e Quatro de Maio, Avenida Ipiranga, and Avenida São João in the historic center of the city. Praça da República had many names before 1889, including Largo dos Curros, Largo da Palha, Praça das Milícias, Largo Sete de Abril, and Praça 15 de November. On Sundays, there is an open-air market on the Praça da República with many food carts and vendors selling art, clothing, jewelry, and handicrafts. Artisans come from the North and Northeast regions of Brazil as well as neighboring countries in Latin America to sell their goods.
Modernist apartment buildings on the square date to the 1930s, and include the Esther Building, the São Tomás Buildings, Oscar Niemeyer’s Eiffel Building, and Jacques Pilon’s São Luiz Building.
Two of São Paulo’s most iconic buildings, Edifício Copan and Edifício Itália, are located just to the south of Praça da República near the corner of avenidas São Luís and Ipiranga.
Edifício Itália. A 46-story triangular building built in 1965 with the narrow at the front rounded. It has a bar, restaurant and rooftop observation deck.
Edifício Copan. An 91-story apartment building designed by Oscar Niemeyer that is all curves with a rippling profile. A lovely building.
Mário de Andrade Library. Mostly a 2-story building, a 12-story tower and an imposing marble entrance with columns. The highlight is one side that is all glass with a nice deck outside.
Mosteiro de São Bento. Wow. Don’t miss this church wiith 2 bell towers. All walls are painted, two-tone columns. large polychromes in the main nave, an elaborate coffered ceiling and the side altars are lovely gilded affairs with small polychromes. A large mosaic is at the end of the right hand nave.
Santa Ifigenia Viaduct. This 738 foot long bridge built in 1913 used 1100 tons of iron. It has two piers and crosses a large 10-lane highway. The handrails are decorative wrought iron.
The next three buildings are in the lovely pedestrianzed part of the city.
Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil. An imposing, classic 5-story building sitting on a corner. It has many tourists and is one of the best cultural attractions. A central rotunda is very nice.
Altino Arantes Building. A more moderrn skyscraper thst houses the Bank of Sao Paulo. The high 3 bottom floors have 17 floors above.
Martinelli Building. This 16-story building has been converted into condominiums.
Municipal Market of São Paulo. Probably the nicest market in the world, it is a grand stone edifice with three large skylights, wonderful columns with Corinthian capitals, many stained glass windows, and wide aisles separating the many produce stands and restaurants. There are no knick-knack stands or clothing stores.
Catavento Museum. Housed in a wonderful old palace with a central tower, this is an above-average science museum with many hands-on exhibits. It is wildly popular with children and families. Two steam locomotives, several steam engines, wagons, and an old passenger airplane are on the grounds. Free
Catedral da Se. Unusually, it has 5 naves separated by great fluted columns. Highlights are the 24 large, complex stained glass windows, two large mosaics at the cross, and 2 lovely wood-carved pulpits accessed by winding stair.
Liberdade street market. Heavily visited by tourists, this market is primarily Japanese, with stores on both sides of the street, and a food court.
By sheer luck, this street market was only 300 m from my hostel, Hostel Liberdade. Despite the worker knowing zero English and great difficulties registering, this turned out bo surprising nice. Late at night there was a large street party across the street.
Day 2
I had another big day using only two metros at the beginning and long walks between to see about 25 sites. I must have walked 20 km and was completely knackered by the end of the day, finishing at 8 pm at the M of Contemporary art.
Morumbi Shopping. A modern mall with all the stores, theatres, and an arcade. I went to the North Face hoping they had down puff jackets – certainly not the choice we have in Canada.
Ponte Octavio Frias de Olivera. A large double decked cable suspension road bridge supported by a huge X-shaped tower. Crosses the Pinheiros River.
United Nations Business Centre is s a commercial complex with 277,446.18 square metres of building area, including shopping center and the West, North, and East Towers. Started in 1989, the project was completed around the year 2000.
The North Tower, the tallest of the complex, is one of the largest buildings in Brazil, with a height of 158 metres (518 ft). Currently, the tower is home to several multinational companies, including, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Monsanto, Towers Watson, and GVT Global Village Telecom. The East Tower had to be redesigned internally to accommodate a luxury hotel, the Hilton – Morumbi. The West Tower is used for offices. The South Tower has 18 floors. Plaza I has 17 floors. The complex has an underground connection with the business complex nearby, the World Trade Center São Paulo. On November 8, 2008, the complex hosted the G20 meeting.
In a maze of skyscrapers and seems to be part of the Hilton complex. 
E-Tower is a 37-storey skyscraper at 148 metres, it is the 17th-tallest skyscraper in the city, with a postmodern architecture. E-Tower has the world record for concrete resistance, with a 10 metres floor-to-ceiling high lobby and four underground levels’ pillars with dimensions reduced without losing their resistance capacity.
Features of the building include a heated swimming pool in the 37th floor, an auditorium for 100 people on the ground level, a fitness centre on the 20th floor, a restaurant on the 21st floor, and a helipad on the roof.
There is not much to see, just one small room. Free
Butantã Serpentarium. The collection of venomous snakes, includes 407 varieties of pit viper, rattlesnake , elapids (cobras) , mamba and colubrid species as well as lizards (including venemous species such as the gila monster), spiders, scorpions and amphibians such as poison dart frogs.
Tomie Ohtake Institute and Art Gallery. Tomie Ohtake (1913-2015) was a Japanese Brazilian visual artist with paintings, prints and sculptures.
Ohtake was born in 1913 in Kyoto. In 1936, when she was twenty-three years old, Ohtake traveled to Brazil to visit a brother but could not return to Japan due to the Pacific Theater of World War II occurring there. Ohtake settled herself in São Paulo with her husband, her son Ruy being born there in 1938 and started painting in 1951, after a visit to the studio of the painter Keisuke Sugano. She created dozens of public space sculptures from the late eighties; her work has been featured in several cities in Brazil,
Livraria da Vila. A large modern bookstore with a small case of English.
Beco do Batmanns. A neighborhood where everything is covered in graffiti and murals. Beco do Batmanns is a small piece next to a restaurant.
Casa Guilherme de Almeida.
Pacaembu Stadium. The large municipal football stadium. It couldn’t be entered (although I got glimpses into the inside. Doesn’t appear to be used (except for concerts?)
Football Museum. Commemorates the heroes of Brazil football using many video monitors. In Pacaembu Stadium. 7.5 BR
MAB – Museu de Arte Brasileira, One large gallery of art from the 20th century. Not great. I took photos of several of the stained glass windows covering the entire back wall.
Museum of Art. Two floors in a lovely space. There was an unusual method of display with each piece mounted on a glass panel. The name and description were on the back making it kind of cumbersome. There were many European masters. Entrance requires a cumbersome on-line ticket. 25 BR reduced.
Monumento às Bandeiras is a large-scale granite sculpture by the Italian-Brazilian sculptor Victor Brecheret (1894-1955) at the entrance of Ibirapuera Park commissioned in 1921 and completed in 1954. It commemorates the 17th-century bandeiras, or settling expeditions into the interior of Brazil, and the bandeirantes that participated in them. The monument is huge and in a prominent location,
The monument has been the subject of criticism for neglecting the darker side of the bandeirantes, who killed and enslaved members of the indigenous peoples of Brazil. The monument regularly attracts vandalism, such as red paint symbolizing blood. Others have noted the high cost of a day to maintain and clean the monument of graffiti. In the wake of the global protests which erupted after the murder of George Floyd, the monument has come under renewed criticism for its celebration of slavers and demands for its removal.
Ibirapurera Park. A huge, very popular urban park with lakes and several cultural buildings including the next six buildings and museums.
Professor Aristóteles Orsini Planetarium. A large dome with the usual shows geared to the public. Only in Portuguese. 20 BR
Afro Museum Brasil. This massive museum could take days to see. Great art and ethnography exhhibits. 7.5 BR reduced
Ibirapuera Auditorium. An Oscar Niemeyer creation, it is a huge white building in a triangular profile. A large red “tongue” projects from the front. With a large lobby, I didn’t go into the auditorium that has regular shows. 
Lucas Nogueira Garcez Pavillion (Oca). A large dome with an art museum. Under renovation.
Sao Paulo Museum of Modern Art. Half was to one artist and not great. The small room had several geometrics. 10 BR
Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion. Also in the park. Since the 4th edition in 1957, the São Paulo Biennial takes place here. The pavilion was designed by a team led by Oscar Niemeyer and Hélio Uchôa, and named after Francisco (Ciccillo) Matarazzo Sobrinho (1898-1977), the Biennial’s founder. The three-story building provides an exhibition space of 30,000 sqm.
Ayrton Senna Monument. It was a long walk around the monument to the Unknown soldier to find this lovely monumnet, a futuristic bronze (of a race car?) dedicated to the famous Formual I driver. On a round grass mound, the marble surround has several of his sayings.
Museum of Contemporary Art. With exhibits on the top four floors, I enjoyed most of the art, but especially the photographs by on the first floor.
I returned to Sao Paulo from Rio Grande Sul on May 1, 2022 after a 20-hour marathon bus ride, After trying to sort out how I was going to see the Bahamas, Jamaica, and St Vincent, I took the metro to a new hostel (Aurea, which I quite enjoyed as the staff was very nice). I caught up on my sleep and played a lot of bridge. On my second day I went for a 4.8 km walk to see three museums and then took the metro back to my hostel.
Ema Klabin Cultural Foundation is an art museum created by the Brazilian collector and philanthropist Ema Gordon Klabin (1907–1994), with the purpose of preserving and displaying her art collection in her former house. The house is surrounded by a large garden.
The collection has 1,500 pieces, covering Western art history, from Greek, Etrukscan, European masters (Dutch, Flemish, Italian and French), Asian, African and pre-Columbian art. Brazilian art is also outlined. Free
Museu Brasileiro da Escultura e Ecologia. This is an art museum with primarily sculpture and three-dimensional supports. Its main building is made entirely of concrete and is mostly underground with a garden designed by Burle Marx. It ahs three exhibitions halls and an auditorium. Free
Sao Paulo Museum of Image and Sound. During the 1970s and 1980s, the museum had an active role as a center of artistic diffusion and education-related activities, becoming an important reference for studies on the Brazilian audio-visual production.
The museum’s collection includes more than 350,000 entries.[2] It comprises films (shorts, features, and documentaries), videos, records, photographs, works of graphic design, etc.including a section on oral tradition. All in Portuguese, this was not very interesting. Free
I went out to the GRU airport at 6:30 pm on the metro to take my 22:20 flight (United, via Chicago and Washington DC, 22 hours, CAD678) to Fort Lauderdale, the hub for seeing Jamaica, the Bahamas and St Vincent.
It took 2.5 hours – 4 metros and 3 buses to get to the airport. By the time I was through security it was after 9 and the flight started to board at 9:20. Despite desiring a BK or Bob’s burger, fries and milkshake for dinner, there were neither on airside. So I had a Starbucks mocha frappacino and a hot dog using up all my Brazilian money.
I ended up with one of the emergency exit seats which I hate as you can have none of your belongings and have an awkward TV and table. I ended up sitting next to a woman whose wasn’t sitting with her husband so I changed and got a window seat.
My flight was Sao Paulo to Chicago O’Hare (10 hours, 2 hour layover), Washington Dulles (5 hour layover and then Fort Lauderdale, my final destination (total 22 hours) arriving at 7:30 pm. I slept in the FLL airport and caught a flight to Montego Bay, Jamaica at 10:30 the next day (May 4).
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I didn’t see the following in Sao Paulo
Immigration Museum
Museu Paulista
Museum of the Brazilian Home
São Paulo Aquarium
Centro Empresarial
Museum of Zoology of the University of São Paulo
Trails 2 – Hikes: Trilha da Bica
Zoos. Sao Paulo Zoo
Malls/Department Stores
Centro Comercial Aricanduva
Waterfalls: Véu da Noiva
Lakes: Billings Reservoir
The following are outside the city of Sao Paulo
World Heritage Sites: Atlantic Forest South-East Reserves
Tentative WHS
Brazilian Fortresses Ensemble (30/01/2015)
Cultural Landscape of Paranapiacaba: Village and railway systems in the Serra do Mar Mountain Range, São Paulo (27/02/2014)
World of Nature: Restinga de Bertioga State Park
Planetariums: Santo André: Sabina Escola Parque do Conhecimento
Theme Parks and Miniatures: Suzano: Magic City
Cities of the Americas
SANTOS/SAO VICENTE/PRAIA GRANDE/GUARUJA/CUBATAO
Railway, Metro, Funiculars, Cable Cars: Santos Heritage Tramway
House and Biographical Museums: Santos: Pelé Museum
Religious Temples: Basílica Santo Antônio do Embaré
Aquariums: Santos: Municipal Aquarium Santos
Maritime/Ship Museums: Santos: Museo Maritimo