Sao Paulo is a city for city lovers, not dipped in gold, like Paris, or strung with bunting for royal processions, like London.Visit Brasil
A funny thing happened on the way to Rio. I extended my stopover in Sao Paulo and didn’t want to leave.
The fun began right off the plane, behind a passenger who skateboarded down the jet bridge with his rolling suitcase. And it continued in the morning sunshine, as I weaved through the Se cathedral district with a freshly squeezed orange juice, marvelling at antique newsstands and art deco facades as the city rushed to work. Later in the historic Republica neighbourhood, ringed with palms and soaring murals, vendors wheeled churrasco stalls into the street market. Calypso music blasted from boutiques. Restaurant patios filled with gorgeous faces. The city’s pulse quickened. The architecture gleamed.
Not to knock Rio, but it tends to hog all the love, along with Buenos Aires, Montevideo and every other metropolis on the South Atlantic coast. I’d bought into the notion that Sao Paulo – the hub with the cheaper, more direct flights and larger, more diverse population – was a sweltering mass of concrete, not worth much time.
I was wrong. That’s not to say I’d endorse a long-haul flight for Brazil’s financial centre alone. But to skip it entirely would be a mistake. Why? It’s a city for city lovers, not dipped in gold, like Paris, or strung with bunting for royal processions, like London. Built up in the latter 20th century for big industry, it is predictably coated in cement, yet it has been applied using head and heart. The grid of streets makes sense, and the swooping, arched, cascading sheets of concrete exhibit a zeal for experimentation, from the cozy rows of cottages in quiet Bom Retiro veiled with decorative screens and louvres to the luxury towers on Avenida Paulista.
Sao Paulo’s cultural hub sits within the green sward of Parque Ibirapuera, focus of big-ticket museums, bulbous modernist sculpture and couples who roller-skate together after work.VisitBrasil/Visit Brasil
Sao Paulo’s cultural hub sits within the green sward of Parque Ibirapuera, focus of big-ticket museums, bulbous modernist sculpture and couples who roller-skate together after work. This is where the legendary architect Oscar Niemeyer built his OCA dome, an exhibition hall that’s a cross between a hut and a UFO, and designed an auditorium that opens to the outdoors, with a tongue-like overhang at the foyer. Near the southern entrance is the circular alfresco restaurant Selvagem, the sort of tropical grill the Rainforest Café chain wishes it could be.
Along one wall of the Museum of Modern Art is a wild mural by Os Gêmeos, identical twin graffiti artists, like a contemporary Hieronymus Bosch triptych. And running between the showpiece buildings is a covered “veranda” where kids bring actual boom boxes to choreograph group dances. All together they reveal a cross-section of Sao Paulo life, albeit orchestrated to delight.
Elsewhere, visitors aren’t delivered highlights on a silver platter. I respect Sao Paulo’s refusal to care if I appreciate the Pateo do Collegio, a barely marked white-stucco Jesuit mission where the city was founded in 1554. Or if I can even find the municipal market, which requires perseverance: I steered through a dozen side roads choked with vendors before one of them spit me out in front of the building’s massive stained-glass arches. Inside, mobs of hungry families crowded the perimeter, waiting for a table at one of the lunch stands, while shoppers converged on booths hung with sausages and tropical fruit.
My first evening, I ate what amounted to two dinners after discovering a little grid off Republica Square jammed with churrascarias, sushi bars and jerk shacks. Then, across Avenida Ipiranga, a seemingly non-descript cul-de-sac came alive with candle-lit cafés. Dapper, lavishly maned diners spilled out onto the sinuous sidewalk in large, back-slapping groups, quaffing caipirinhas and bottles of beer, munching risotto balls and fried tapioca. They looked like they could have been tourists because Paulistanos come from everywhere: Portugal, Angola, America, Italy, Japan and the Amazon. And everyone I asked said a version of the same thing: that SP is the anti-Rio, so rough around the edges that people thrive on one another. They bring their culture to the mosaic and paint a picture of the larger nation.
Renowned architect Oscar Niemeyer designed the OCA Dome in the shape of indigenous huts.Visit Brasil
The sidewalk was S-shaped because it followed the curve of the building rising 42 storeys overhead: Edificio Copan, also designed by Niemeyer as its own live-work-eat-play universe. It still offers loads to do – bakeries and bookshops, a boutique selling vintage bolero hats, an açai smoothie bar, a chocolate factory – and remains obviously beloved. But as pleasant as everyone seemed, the area wasn’t particularly tourist-friendly. On a map it’s far from obvious, nor is it heralded in books or blogs. It rewards the curious.
Ditto Casa de Francisca, a renovated colonial manor three blocks from the Se. You’ve got to know it to find it, down a deserted pedestrian alley surrounded by sixties-era department stores shuttered for the night. Bossa nova and hip-hop blare out the open windows until 1 a.m., but who’s around to complain?
What passes for touristy is farther south in Liberdade, a longtime haven for Japanese Brazilians running izakaya bars and karaoke joints. Like many an Asian enclave, Liberdade announces itself with ornate gates and hanging lanterns, and is so congested on weekends you can’t help inhaling exhaust with your bubble tea. Then there’s the Jardim, southwest of the old centre. At one end, you’ll find your Havaiana shops, Pele T-shirts and leafy bohemian cafés. On the other, closer to Ibirapuera, streets are laid out with high-design concept stores smelling of rosewood, and top hotels play host to DJ nights in lounges designed for kingpins.
Sao Paulo is the anti-Rio, so rough around the edges that people thrive on one another. They bring their culture to the mosaic and paint a picture of the larger nation.Luis Blanco/Visit Brasil
Less slick but no less colourful was Barra Funda, a gentrifying postindustrial enclave crawling with old merchants and young artists. Around every corner was a moment of discovery. I crept past unassuming gates into glamorous art galleries with sculpture gardens out back. Every block or two was a boteco, or wine bar, fringed with ferns and fairy lights. Or a bakery selling Portuguese egg tarts from a window with painted shutters. I heard maritacas singing from tall jabuticaba trees and ate lettuce-leaf wraps with Brazilian barbecued beef on the cozy rear terrace of Komah, a Korean-fusion restaurant flanked by a kitchen design boutique and scrap-iron yard.
I could tell my stopover was the right choice as I was leaving town in a taxi, skirting a graffiti-clad elevated highway. On weekends, the driver told me, the highway closes to traffic. Locals call it Minhocao – “the worm” – and at dusk they were cycling down the lanes, reclining on the median, dribbling a basketball. They appeared staged, against the backdrop of apartment blocks festooned with wall art. And I would have joined them if I could have. I carried on full of regret, yet I suppose that’s exactly what you want from a departure.
Sao Paulo's grid of streets makes sense, and the swooping, arched, cascading sheets of concrete exhibit a zeal for experimentation.Visit Brasil
Special to The Globe and Mail
The writer was a guest of the Latin American Travel Association. It did not review or approve the story before publication.