While I was in Belo Horizonte, it's only obvious that I had to visit Ouro Preto. If you read my last post, Meet up with Mondrian, I mentioned that Belo Horizonte was once home to the biggest city in Brazil, Vila Rica, know today as Ouro Preto.
Ouro Preto is a colonial town, that became a UNESCO World Historic Centre in 1980. The city highlights baroque architecture with beautiful churches, bridges and sculptures at every corner. The most notable of the city’s architectural works are represented by the religious monuments and administrative buildings, including the Palácio dos Governadores (Governors’ Palace), today the School of Mines, and the former Casa de Câmara e Cadeia (Administrative and Prison House), home to the Inconfidência Museum. The Baroque churches carry sculptures by Antônio Francisco Lisboa, Aleijadinho, colonial Brazil’s greatest artist, and the ceiling paintings of Manuel da Costa Athaide among others.
Ouro Preto is about a 2-hour bus ride from downtown Belo Horizonte. Seriously, what a beautiful bus ride! Although I barely slept the night before, I couldn't close my eyes. The views were sincerely breathtaking. We grabbed a map at the Bus station and basically we just started walking. I'm so used to flat cities so Minas Gerias in general was a daily workout but Ouro Preto had my calves on fire after the first 5 minutes but the experience is worth the burn. Throughout, the day we visited about 12 museums and churches, I had the best meat balls in my life, ducked through a gold mine and wondered through the local street fair. By 8p.m we were back on the bus to Belo.
Although the trip was short, Ouro Preto is now my favourite Brazilian city. The people seemed so proud of their culture, their struggle, the streets were quiet and somehow it reminded me of the close nit nature of Barbados.
Keep locked to IG for snaps from that day and my daily life!
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