Day 88 - São Paulo, Brazil

We have had a superb day in São Paulo today. It is a fantastic city. I actually thought it would be a huge, sprawling city, run down city with not much character. How wrong I was (about the latter two). It's a great place. Many people draw a lot of parallels and comparisons with New York and we can really see it. This is a huge cosmopolitan city that is bustling and vibrant just like NYC or London. 

We have a nice lie in this morning and don't head out until midday. We have a walk through Centro which is the main business district to Mercado Municipal which is a huge market that comes highly recommended.

We are struck by the amount of Graffiti. The graffiti artists manage to graffiti in the most impossible places - even up the side of high rises.  

We are also struck by the heat as soon as we leave the confines of our air conditioned hotel. It's a whopping 38 degrees today but luckily it is not that humid so feels relatively bearable. 

The national theatre. 

São Paulo's answer to the Empire State. This is the Edificio Altino Arantes which we are going to head to the observation deck at the after brunch. 

We could literally be in New York with the buildings around here. 

After a sweaty 2km walk we arrive at the Mercado Municipal. We were not quite expecting it to be as nice as it is inside. It is like Borough market with the most amazing food and drink stalls. It also has a fantastic food cort upstairs too. 

The market is like a massive gourmet deli full of amazing fruits, cheese, wine, beer, meat, spices you name it. 

 

We decide to eat at Mortadele Brasil which takes the same name of the markets (and Sao Paulo's) signature dish.  

An unknown fact about Brazil is that you will always get served a beer with a third of head. Don't bother asking them to top it up as they will look at you like an alien - having a decent head is their way of signaling that it is good beer. 

By far the best thing about this place is their signature dish - the Mortadela which  is the biggest sandwich you have ever seen, jam packed with ham that is so thick you can't get your mouth around it. All for £5 each too!

It is delicious and ridiculously filling. 

A great craft beer place. They even have Brew Dog and Brooklyn Lager. 

We then wobble back to one of the sky scrapers to get a good view of the city. The area around the market is so colourful and vibrant. 

Nat has really adopted the Brazilian spirit. 

The São Paulo carnival is fast approaching and they have whole shops selling carnival gear. 

Never seen a phone with boobs before. 

The view from the top of the Edificio Altino Arantes (Empire State) is fantastic and gives us a great perspective of the city. It is like skyscraper central. There are skyscrapers as far as the eye can seen in all directions. We have never seen so many. It makes New York's sky line look like a small town in comparison. 

Even some of the straight streets give it a NY feel. 

Panoramic view. 

The market is the big building to the right of the colourful buildings. 

More panorama the other side. 

The great thing is that it is free to go up this tower but you only get a strict five mins at the top which is actually just enough time to soak up the view. 

We then head back down, down São Bento which again could be a Wall Street. We then get on be very clean and efficient (if not a little hot) subway to Paulista to explore the Jardins area. 

When we arrive we head down Paulista Avenue which is like their equivalent of fifth avenue. We walk past the Museum of Modern Art and are not quite sure how this building stays up. It is about a block long with no support other than the four corners. It does look like it is buckling in the middle though. Managed to capture a helicopter flying over it in this pic too!

More Paulista Avenue. 

Along this road is Parque Tenente Siqueira Campos which is the most gorgeous oasis in the middle of the city. It is just like being back in the jungle the trees and vegetation are so thick. It also looks beautiful with the sun light sparkling through the trees. 

Everywhere we look through there are thousands of huge cobwebs strung between each tree and at a closer look we see their creators, typically 4-5 per web. 

We then head into Jardines which is the really nice part of São Paulo, very residential and equivalent of Mayfair. 

It has stunning apartment blocks. This is definitely where the rich live in São Paulo. They are pretty pimp, all with gorgeous gardens and security. For relatively old apartment blocks the architecture still looks great today. Coventry should have taken a leaf out of São Paulo's book when they embarked on building their high rise monstrosities. 

The area is gorgeous too. We head to Rua Oscar Freire and have a nice drink in a restaurant called São Grau before heading to watch the footie. We are so thirsty today it is so hot. 

Nat outside the very cool Melissa shop (a famous Brazilian shoe designer). 

The street is full with really cool little shops and boutiques. 

We then go to a cool little Irish bar called O'Malleys for the Arsenal vs Man Utd game. Luckily Nat had her iPad and free wifi to keep her occupied. Wish I did as it was rather boring. Good job the Napoli vs Roma game on the next TV was more entertaining. 

Me and my bucket of beer. Happy days. 

We then have another wander around the streets of Jardins. It's also really nice that it gets dark a lot later here. We have been so close to the equator for so long it has been getting dark at 6pm every night. Tonight it's still light at 8:30pm. 

We find a great little restaurant called Clarkes which could have been straight out of New York. I had the pork ribs which were the meatiest ribs in have ever had. Nat opted for her first steak tartar of the trip. They were hugs. 

The decor was really cool. Particularly the toilets.

Winston and Frank. Wise men. 

By now it's about 10:30pm and still 32 degrees outside. We are a bit knackered so head back to the hotel looking forward to tomorrow. We have the best taxi driver ever on the way home. He was so enthusiastic to test his very limited English out - about as enthusiastic as we are to test out limited Portugese. It makes for a fun taxi ride. We love São Paulo. This is definitely an underrated place. More people should come here. What has been great is how safe it is here. The ability to walk around all day not having to worry about where we go or whether it's safe down this or that road had been great. It enables you to experience so much more of a city. We have definitely been missing this in South America.