The best way to approach
BELO
HORIZONTE is from the south,
over the magnificent hills of the
Serra do Espinhaço, on a road that
winds back and forth before finally
cresting a ridge where the entire
city is set out before you. It's a
spectacular sight: Belo Horizonte
sprawls in an enormous bowl
surrounded by hills, a sea of
skyscrapers,
favelas and
industrial suburbs. From the centre,
the jagged rust-coloured skyline of
the Serra do Espinhaço, which gave
the city its name, is always visible
on the horizon - still being
transformed by the mines gnawing
away at the "breast of
iron".
Despite its size and importance,
Belo Horizonte is little more than a
century old, laid out in the early
1890s on the site of the poor
village of Curral del Rey - of which
nothing remains - and shaped by the
new ideas of "progress"
that emerged with the new Republic.
Belo Horizonte was the first of
Brazil's planned cities and is
arguably the most successful. As
late as 1945 it had only 100,000
inhabitants; now it has well over
twenty times that number (forty
times if one includes the city's
metropolitan hinterland), an
explosive rate of growth even by
Latin American standards. It rapidly
became the most important pole of
economic development in the country,
after São Paulo, and while it may
not be as historic as the rest of
the state it's difficult not to be
impressed by the city's scale and
energy. Moreover, Belo Horizonte's
central location and proximity to
some of the most important cidades
históricas (Sabará is just
outside the city, Ouro Preto and
Mariana only two hours away by road)
make it a good base for exploring
Minas Gerais.
The central zone of Belo
Horizonte is contained within the
inner ring road, the Avenida do
Contorno ; the centre is laid
out in a grid pattern, crossed by
diagonal avenidas, that makes
it easy to find your way around on
foot, though difficult by car
because of a complex system of
one-way traffic. The spine of the
city is the broad Avenida Afonso
Pena , with the Rodoviária at
its northern end, in the heart of
the downtown area. Just down from
the Rodoviária along Avenida Afonso
Pena is the obelisk in the Praça
Sete , the middle of the hotel
and financial district and the
city's busiest part; a few blocks
further down Afonso Pena are the
trees and shade of the Parque
Municipal . A short distance
south of the centre is the Praça
da Liberdade , Belo Horizonte's
main square, dominated by a double
row of imperial palms and important
public buildings, while beyond lies
the chic area of Savassi ,
with its restaurants, nightlife and
boutiques.
The only places beyond the
Contorno you're likely to visit
are the artificial lake and Niemeyer
buildings of Pampulha , to
the north, and the rambling nature
reserve of Mangabeiras , on
the southern boundary of the city.
The City
Even the most patriotic mineiro
would make few claims for the
architecture of Belo Horizonte,
dominated as it is by nondescript
1960s and 1970s high-rises.
Nonetheless, there are a few notable
exceptions, notably on and around
Praça da...
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