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.
