‚Never judge the book by its cover‘ These are the words my work colleague Warren used for São Paulo. We were recently on a business trip and had one day to recover from the flight and the different time zone. I couldn’t resist to use this day to discover the city with my camera. I must admit that it wasn’t that easy to plan in a city with over 10 million people and I didn’t really know any highlights. But in the end I was very positively surprised by this city and its friendly people!
When I prepared my tour I was especially exited to visit one particular place: Beco do Batman (Batman's Alley). It’s all about graffiti everywhere in the alleys and the quality was really amazing. You can find graffiti all over São Paulo but this place was unique!
I spent about an hour here on Sunday morning and there weren’t many people there yet. This was nice but the problem was that there were also no taxis. So I tested my Uber app and luckily São Paulo is very well covered with this system. My next destination was the cathedral - the forth biggest neo-Gothic church in the world - in the center of the city. I speak a little bit Portuguese but not really good enough for a conversation so I was very fortunate that my driver spoke some English. At the end of the drive he told me to be careful since this area is supposed to be very unsafe.
I instantly saw why: The square was very crowded with lots of homeless people and drug addicts sleeping on the ground. It was reassuring to see the police at every corner but I didn’t want to stay long. I did a quick visit to the cathedral and there was a Sunday Mass and the singing was very beautiful. I took a quick photo and Ubered it back to the hotel to plan my next photo highlight: the Ponte Estaida Octávio Frias de Oliveira. An interesting bridge across the Rio Pinheros.
From there I joined my work colleague at a pub to watch the English soccer. As a big Liverpool fan I really enjoyed seeing them win! After the game (and some beer) we headed out for some food to the churrascaria Fogo de Chão - a tip given to me by my good friend, Andy Fricker, in Switzerland.
Wow, the meat was really excellent! After that we went for sunset drink at the rooftop bar at Terraço Itália. It was a cloudy evening but it was still astonishing to see the sheer amount of skyscrapers. São Paulo lacks the beauty of Rio but it’s still very impressive to experience.
The next morning I was up early and had some time left before the first meeting started. I decided to go from grey to green. It was almost an hours walk through the financial center to get to the Parque do Ibarapuera - the biggest park in São Paulo.
It‘s really a nice place to get away from the noise of the city with beautiful trees, a lake with birds and on the other side an auditorium designed by famous architect Oscar Niemeyer.
In my Uber cab back I had the opportunity to see the Monumento às Bandeiras. I couldn’t imagine that this sculpture was designed in 1921 and finished in 1954 since it looked far more modern to me.
My office was in the new financial center around Avenida Barge Faris Lima. There are domestic planes flying over this area which gave a similar experience to the Hong Kong when the airport was in the middle of the city. The buildings in this quarter are very modern and gave some interesting photo opportunities.
The district is called Itaim Bibi and is considered the best one in São Paulo. There are some cool bars and restaurants everywhere. Certainly a good area to try a Caipirinha is the popular bar Pirajà. There is another cool place with live singers called Tatu Bola where they have Samba on Saturday afternoons. I wasn’t there but was told that especially before the carnival a visit there is a must do.
Early next morning I visited another financial district: Avenida Paulista. Unfortunately, it was raining and I wasn’t in the mood to further explore. Another friend told me that São Paulo also has superb art museums and I ended up with a quick photo of the art museum before heading to the office.
A final word about the amazing food: We tried another great churrascaria called Barbacoa. But this city not just offers great meat but also a superb Japanese cuisine. I didn’t know that São Paulo has the biggest Japanese population outside of Japan. We had a business dinner at the OHKA restaurant which was a real treat and great experience.
© Aaron Matzinger & Clare Walker
#saopaulo
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