Promenade Lourdes

Urban Life and steep streets

by index2005

Backpacks or light bag with wheels. Never forget about the wheels!!(strong ones) April to September: sandals or sneakers, T-shirts, pair of jeans, light jacket.
October to March: Umbrella, raincoat, plastic shoes plus the above mentioned. Prescription medicines are not sold without prescription. All toiletries are found. Anything low maintainance and digital. The city has no campings or outdoor accomodations. Life in Belo Horizonte is meant to be urban: commuters, shoppings, offices, schooling, housing, buildings, avenues. You are not about to see anyone taking pictures around.The city is Not a tourist attraction.

BELO HORIZONTE: SUNDAY FAIR AND PARK

by swesn

I know… it seemed strange that I always go to 'ferias' (in Spanish) or 'feiras' (in Portuguese) but really, I do enjoy them, especially those that are not so touristy.

There, you can see a lot of things happening - the locals enjoying themselves on their day out, eating, drinking, shopping, perhaps, there would be some music, some jugglers, children having fun… It is great fun just to people-watch. And what can one do on a Sunday when all the shops are closed anyway, except to go to such feiras?

Gosh, when I came upon the Sunday feira along Av. Afonso Pena, I was totally unprepared for it. It was IMMENSE!!! I later learnt that there are over 3000 stall-holders in this market!! That was huge!

I guess, Belo Horizonte is such an untouristy town that I had no expectation at all from it. But as I browsed through the 'feira', I thoroughly enjoyed myself, checking out everything that was for sale.

There were furniture, lots of baskets, clothes, children’s clothes, toys, tonnes of costume jewellery and finally at the extreme end, shoes and bags. It seemed odd to list them out like this in a sentence but in reality, there were just rows and rows and rows and rows of stalls selling these goods, somehow organised into these various departments.

Then, along the side of the park, there was art. It was absolutely massive! And not to forget, at the two ends and the middle portions were many food and drink stalls selling barbecued snacks and desserts. It was such great fun!! The whole place was crawling with enthusiastic happy locals. I felt really happy as well, walking around here.

Gosh, this feira had made my trip to Belo Horinzonte worthwhile already. I had had so much fun!

I rested a while at the Parque Municipal which had a series of lakes and some very keen boat-rowers.

Museu de Arte at nearby Pampulha was Oscar Niemeyer's, the famous architect who later designed many futuristic-looking buildings all around Brazil, first project.

But frankly, it was not so worth it to make the trip here for the building nor the art exhibition.