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| Brazil (Minas Gerais) |
| Ouro Preto |
| The drive to OURO PRETO, 100km southeast of Belo Horizonte, begins unpromisingly with endless industrial complexes and favelas spread over the hills, but in its later stretches becomes spectacular, winding around hill country 1000m above sea level and passing several valleys where patches of forest survive: imagine the entire landscape covered with it and you have an idea of what greeted the gold-seekers in the 1690s. On arrival, the first thing that strikes you is how small the town is, considering that until 1897 it was the capital of Minas – its population is still only around 65,000. That said, you can see at a glance why the capital had to be shifted to Belo Horizonte: the steep hills the town is built around, straddling a network of creeks, severely limit space for expansion. Today, the hills and vertiginous streets (some so steep they have steps rather than pavements) are vital ingredients in what is one of the loveliest towns in Brazil, an almost unspoilt eighteenth-century jewel. | |
| Avoid
coming on Monday if you want to see the sights, as all the churches and
most of the museums close for the day. Also, buy your onward ticket as
soon as you arrive as buses fill up quickly. Some people complain about
Ouro Preto being touristy – and it is more commercialized than any other
cidade histórica – but they miss the point: it’s precisely
because there really is something to savour here that the visitors come.
If you have the time, aim to spend at least a night or two in Ouro Preto
so that you can enjoy the city after all the day-trippers have departed.
Ouro Preto has an extremely popular street Carnaval that attracts visitors from far afield: be sure to reserve accommodation long in advance. Likewise, at Easter time, the town becomes the focus of a spectacular series of plays and processions lasting for about a month before Easter Sunday, during which the last days of the life of Christ are played out in open-air theatres throughout the town. The tourist office can supply programmes and dates or you can get information from TURMINAS and BELOTUR in Belo Horizonte. History |
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| Less
than a decade after gold was struck at Sabará, a Paulista adventurer
called Antônio Dias pitched camp underneath a mountain the Indians
called Itacolomi, with an unmistakeable thumb-shaped rock on its summit.
Panning the streams nearby, he found “black gold” – alluvial gold
mixed with iron ore – and named his camp after it. It attracted a flood
of people as it became clear the deposits were the richest yet found in
Minas, and so many came that they outstripped the food supply. In 1700
there was a famine and legend has it that people died of hunger with gold
nuggets in their hands.
The early years were hard, made worse by a war started in 1707 between the Portuguese and Paulista bandeirantes, who resisted the Crown’s attempts to take over the area. The war, the Guerra das Emboabas, lasted for two years and was brutal, with ambushes and massacres the preferred tactics of both sides. Ouro Preto was the Portuguese base, and troops from here drove the Paulistas from their headquarters at Sabará and finally annihilated them near São João del Rei. From then on, Ouro Preto was the effective capital of the gold-producing area of Minas, although it wasn’t officially named as such until 1823. Indeed, compared to places like nearby Mariana, Ouro Preto was a late developer; all but two of its churches date from the second half of the eighteenth century, and several of its finest buildings, like the school of mining and the town hall on Praça Tiradentes, were not finished until well into the nineteenth century. The gold gave out about the time that Brazil finally became independent in 1822, but for decades the town survived as an administrative centre and university town; a school of mining was founded in 1876. After the capital moved to Belo Horizonte, steady decline set in, though the populist government of Getúlio Vargas brought back the bodies of the Inconfidêntes to a proper shrine, and sensitively restored the crumbling monuments. Casa dos Contos |
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| From
the Igreja do Pilar, turn right up Rua Rondolfo Bretos and round into Rua
São José (also, confusingly, called Rua Tiradentes), whose many bars
and restaurants make it a good place to take a breather. Crossing the
small stone bridge, you come to the perfectly proportioned Casa dos
Contos, the old treasury building, now a museum (Tues–Sat
12.30–5.30pm, Sun & holidays 8.30am–1.30pm). Finished in 1787, it
was built as a bank-cum-mansion by Ouro Preto’s richest family, and in
1803 became the Fazenda Real, the place where the Crown extracted its
fifth of the gold and assembled armed convoys to escort it down to Rio for
shipment to Portugal. The collection is no more than moderately
interesting – the usual mixture of arte sacra and furniture –
but the building is terrific; a magnificent colonial mansion built when
Ouro Preto was at its peak. The entrance hall is dominated by an imposing
staircase, four storeys high, and constructed around a beautiful
courtyard, large enough for a dozen cavalry troopers. The most interesting
places radiate off it: the huge furnace for melting the gold and shaping
it into bars, the slave quarters, the stables (horses were definitely
better accommodated than slaves) and even an eighteenth-century privy. And
don’t forget to go right up to the mirante on the top floor for
one of the best views of Ouro Preto.
Escola de Minas |
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| Right
on the Praça Tiradentes stands the mining school, the Escola de Minas,
now housed in the old governor’s palace. It’s still the best mining
school in the country, and its students, with their bars and motorbikes,
lend a Bohemian air to the town. The white turrets make the building
itself look rather like a fortress: the exterior, with a fine marble
entrance, dates from the 1740s, but the inside was gutted during the
nineteenth century and not improved by it. Attached to the school is the Museu
de Mineralogia (daily noon–5pm), founded in 1877 from the collection
of the French geologist Henri Gorceix. Although most of the exhibits are
of interest only to geologists, there is one fascinating room where gold
and precious stones are beautifully displayed, in contrast to the chaos of
the rest of it.
Igreja de Nossa Senhora do Carmo |
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| Next
door to the Paço Municipal on Praça Tiradentes is one of the finest
churches in Ouro Preto, the Igreja de Nossa Senhora do Carmo
(Tues–Sun noon–5pm). It was designed by Manoel Francisco Lisboa,
Aleijadinho’s father, and construction began just before his death in
1766. Aleijadinho himself then took over the building of the church
and finished it six years later. He contributed the carving of the
exterior, and worked on the interior, on and off, for four decades. The
baptismal font in the sacristy is a masterpiece, as are the carved doors
leading to the pulpits. Two of the side chapels in the main church (São
João and Nossa Senhora da Piedade) were among the last commissions he was
able to complete, in 1809; the accounts book for the time has Aleijadinho
complaining he was paid with “false gold”. Much the least cluttered of
the major churches in Ouro Preto, the Igreja de Nossa Senhora do Carmo is
the only one to have azulejo-tiled panels, to make the Portuguese
who patronized it feel at home.
To the side of the church is yet another museum of religious art (Tues–Sun noon–5pm), housed in an excellently restored mansion that was once the meeting house for the lay society attached to Nossa Senhora do Carmo. It’s a high-quality collection and very well displayed, the best part being the glittering array of gold and silver religious objects downstairs in the Sala de Tesouro. Igreja de São Francisco de Assis |
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| From
Praça Tiradentes, Rua Cláudio Manoel winds downhill, lined with stores
selling rather expensive precious stones and jewellery which doesn’t in
fact come from Ouro Preto but from eastern Minas. Ahead, on the right, is
arguably the most beautiful church in Ouro Preto, the Igreja de São
Francisco de Assis (Tues–Sun 8.30–11.45am & 1.30–5pm). The
small square that sets it off – Largo do Coimbra – plays host to a
food market in the morning and a mediocre arts and crafts market in
the afternoon.
The church was begun in 1765, and no other in Ouro Preto contains more work by Aleijadinho. The magnificent exterior soapstone panels are his, as is virtually all of the virtuoso carving, in both wood and stone, inside; and to top it off, Aleijadinho also designed the church and supervised its construction. You would think the church commissioners would have left it at that, but in 1801 they contracted the best painter of the barroco mineiro,Manoel da Costa Athayde, to decorate the ceilings. It took him nine years, using natural dyes made from plant juices and powdered iron ore, and his work has stood the test of time far better than other church paintings of the period. The squirming mass of cherubs and saints are framed within a cunning trompe l’oeil effect, which extends the real Baroque pillars on the side of the nave into painted ones on the ceiling, making it seem like an open-air canopy through which you can glimpse clouds. There are also painted azulejos which look remarkably like the real thing. Igreja de Santa Efigênia |
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| Further
out from the centre is the less important but no less fascinating Igreja
de Santa Efigênia (Tues–Sat 8am–noon, Sun noon–5pm), the church
for slaves, located on the east hill some 3km from Praça Tiradentes. To
get there, continue along Rua Cláudio Manoel down to the river, cross
over and climb up Rua Santa Efigênia. Although poor in comparison to Ouro
Preto’s other churches, its artwork is well worth the steep climb. The
altar was carved by Javier do Briton, the mentor of Aleijadinho; the
interior panels are by Manoel Rabelo de Souza; and the exterior image of
Nossa Senhora do Rosário is by Aleijadinho himself. Slaves contributed to
its construction by smuggling gold in their teeth cavities and under their
fingernails.
Igreja do Pilar |
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| It’s
a lovely walk from Praça Tiradentes to Ouro Preto’s oldest church. Rua
Brigador Mosqueira, which runs downhill from the square, is one of the
quietest and most beautiful streets in Ouro Preto, almost every building
worth savouring. Wander down, bear left at the bottom, and you come out
onto the incredibly steep Rua do Pilar, from where you can glimpse the
towers of the Igreja do Pilar well before the plunging, cobbled path
deposits you in front it.
The Igreja do Pilar (Tues–Sun 9–10.45am & noon–4.45pm), with an exterior ornate even by Baroque standards, is the finest example anywhere of early Minas Baroque architecture. It was begun in the 1720s and the interior is the opposite of the Carmo’s restraint, a wild explosion of glinting Rococo, liberally plastered with gold. The best carving was done by Francisco Xavier de Brito, who worked in Minas from 1741 until his early death ten years later – and about whom nothing is known except that he was Portuguese and influenced Aleijadinho. He was responsible for the astonishing arch over the altar, where the angels supporting the Rococo pillars seem to swarm out of the wall on either side. In the sacristy, there’s a small but interesting museum featuring enormous colonial wardrobes and a collection of gold and silver relics, the latter weakened by the theft in 1973 of its most valuable items, which have never been recovered. Matriz de Nossa Senhora da Conceição and Museu do Aleijadinho |
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| Matriz
de Nossa Senhora da Conceição (Tues–Sat 9–11.45am &
1.30–4.45pm, Sun noon–4.45pm) is famous as the church Aleijadinho
belonged to and where he is buried. The one-time cut-throat Antônio Dias,
who founded Ouro Preto and died old and rich in 1727, left his fortune to
build this church on the spot of his first camp – so this is where it
all began and, with the death of Aleijadinho, also where it can be said to
have ended.
Despite Aleijadinho’s connection with the church, he never worked on this one. All the same, it is an impressive example of mid-period Minas Baroque, and the painting and carving are very fine, especially the figures of saints in the side altars – look at the expression and movement of St Sebastian, on the left of the nave. Aleijadinho is buried in a simple tomb on the right of the nave, marked “Antônio Francisco Lisboa” and covered by nothing more elaborate than a plain wooden plank. A side door by the main altar of the church leads to the sacristy and the fascinating Museu do Aleijadinho (Tues–Sat 9–11.45am & 1.30–4.45pm, Sun noon–4.45pm), which is worth lingering over: not so much a museum of Aleijadinho’s work as of his life and times. What work there is by him is in the basement, and is quite something – four magnificent lions which once served as supports for the plinth on which coffins were laid. Aleijadinho, never having seen a lion, drew from imagination and produced medieval monsters with the faces of monkeys. The ground floor is taken up by a high-quality collection of religious art, but the highlight is upstairs, in a room dedicated not just to Aleijadinho but to all the legendary figures of Ouro Preto’s golden age. There are reproductions of the birth and death entries in the parish register for Aleijadinho, Marília Dirceu and Manoel Athayde. But even better are the eighteenth-century ex votos on the wall, a riveting insight into the tribulations of bygone daily life. One shows a black slave on her sickbed, with the inscription “Ana, slave of António Dias, had me made after finding herself gravely ill, without hope of life, but praying to Our Lord of the Slaves miraculously recovered”. Opposite is a gruesome one from 1778 giving thanks for the successful setting of a broken leg, shown in graphic detail. Also on the wall there’s a small portrait, crude but priceless, of Aleijadinho in middle age. It doesn’t flatter so is probably a good likeness: slightly hunched, with sharp features. Mina do Chico Rei |
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| If
you don’t have time to visit the Mina da Passagem gold mine near
Mariana, much nearer, and cheaper too, is the Mina do Chico Rei
(guided tours daily 8am–5pm; $1.50), at Rua Dom Silvério 108 in the
eastern bairro of Antônio Dias. Founded in 1702, barely seven
years after gold was first struck in Sabará, the mine had a working life
of nearly two centuries. Though visually not as impressive as the Mina da
Passagem, it nonetheless boasts some impressive statistics, which give
some idea of just how rich Ouro Preto must once have been: the mine,
constructed on five levels, contains an astonishing eighty square
kilometres of tunnels, vaults and passages.
Paço Municipal and Museu da Inconfidência |
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| In
the Praça Tiradentes are the old city chambers, the Paço Municipal
(Tues–Sun noon–5pm), a glorious eighteenth-century building that
provides a perfect example of the classical grace of Minas colonial
architecture. Its beautifully restored interior lives up to expectations:
like many colonial town halls it was also a jail, and many of the huge
rooms, so well suited to the display of arte sacra, were once
dungeons.
The building contains the Museu da Inconfidência (Tues–Sun noon–5pm), interesting enough since the surrounding towns have been stripped of a great deal of their wealth to stock the museum; the only collection that compares with it is in Mariana. There are relics of eighteenth-century daily life, from sedan chairs and kitchen utensils (including the seal the bishop used to stamp his coat of arms on his cakes) to swords and pistols. A ground-floor room is dominated by a vivid life-size effigy of St George, complete with spear, which was propped up on a horse and paraded around during religious processions. And on the table opposite is the museum’s highlight: four exquisite, small Aleijadinho statues that are a fitting introduction to the flowing detail of his best work. Upstairs there’s colonial furniture and more art, but the spiritual heart of the place is found at the rear of the ground floor, where the cell in which Tiradentes spent the last night of his life is now the shrine to the Inconfidêntes. An antechamber holds documents, like the execution order and birth and death registrations of Tiradentes, reverently framed, and leads into a room containing the remains of the thirteen conspirators and Tiradentes himself – all in the vaguely Fascist style the Vargas era usually chose for its public monuments. Most of the conspirators died in Africa, some in Portugal; all but Tiradentes were exiled for the rest of their lives and never returned to Brazil. Arrival and information |
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| Arriving
from Mariana, the bus passes through the main square, Praça Tiradentes
– where you should get off – before continuing to the Rodoviária,
some fifteen minutes’ walk westwards on Rua Padre Rolim. Belo Horizonte
buses proceed straight to the Rodoviária, from where there are regular
buses to the praça.
Praça Tiradentes itself is dominated by a statue of the martyr to Brazilian independence and lined with beautiful colonial buildings. On the east side at no. 41 is the municipal tourist office (Mon–Fri 8am–6pm; tel 031/3559-3544 ext 3269), which sells an excellent city map for $2 (and has a smaller version for free); it can also provide details of some spectacular walks in the surrounding countryside. The town does get crowded at weekends and holiday periods, but there are so many establishments that you can usually find somewhere to stay; the tourist office has details and prices of even the cheapest hotels, and will phone round for you if you have problems, or keep an eye on your luggage while you search. There are ATMs at Bradesco on Praça Tiradentes, HSBC at Rua São José 105 and at the Banco do Brasil, Rua São José 189: the Banco do Brasil also changes money over the counter from Monday to Friday between 11am and 4pm. Eating and drinking |
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| One
of the nice things about Ouro Preto is the number of places where you can
eat, drink or just hang out; when the students are out in force on weekend
nights, it has none of the quiet atmosphere of a small interior town that
you might expect. During term-time, at the weekend, the steep Rua Conde de
Bobadela (also called Rua Direita), leading up to Praça Tiradentes, is
packed with students spilling out of the bars and cafés; more
congregate in the square itself, though most of the bars there have been
turned into expensive restaurants. The modern wing of the mining school on
the square contains a bar and a live music venue (see the posters
in the lobby). If you prefer a quiet drink away from the crowds, try Bar
Sena, a local dive on the corner outside the Igreja do Pilar.
There is no shortage of restaurants, either; the better-value ones (though still relatively costly) are clustered at the bottom of the hill on Rua São José, of which the best is unquestionably Restaurante Chafariz at no. 167, which does a superb mineiro buffet for about $7 and sometimes has special offers. Established in 1929, the restaurant has become something of a local institution, with pleasantly rustic décor and smooth service – altogether highly recommended. Just off Rua São José at Rua Terceira Amaral 24, there’s a good Italian-mineiro restaurant, Adega Ouro Preto, with excellent food for around $7 a head à la carte, or $6 per kilo. More expensive places are clustered at the top of Rua Direita (Rua Conde de Bobadela) and on Praça Tiradentes, where you’ll get good regional food in uniformly beautiful surroundings for $10–20 per person: a particularly pleasant choice is Restaurante Casa do Ouvidor, Rua Direita 42. For a splurge, try Le Coq D’Or (tel 031/3551-1032), a Franco-mineiro restaurant in the Hotel Solar do Rosário, Rua Vargas 270. Although one of the best retaurants in Minas Gerais, its prices (around $20 a head) are surprisingly reasonable. Be sure to save room for one of the spendid desserts. Thankfully, for those on a tight budget, there are also several cheap places to eat, namely the basic lanchonetes on Rua Senador Rocha Lagoa (also called Rua das Flôres) just off the square (the Vide Gula here is good, and 20m up, Lanchonete Ouro Grill is even cheaper). There are also one or two bars on Rua Conde de Bobadela which serve cheap food and good honey caipirinhas. Accommodation |
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The
prices below are based on weekend (Fri–Sun) and high-season prices;
midweek and in low season, Ouro Preto’s hotels offer discounts of around
20–30 percent. The youth hostel is at Rua das Mercês 136 (tel
031/3551-3170; $7 per person).
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