In an American town with historic attractions and many tourists, there would be many, many antique stores ranging from complete junk to authentic works of art. Ouro Preto has only this one shop, and it contains everything from old rusty hardware to actual pieces of colonial art. John was taken with this little statue. I am usually pretty good with religious iconography, but I have no idea who this odd figure is supposed to be.
John was set to buy it until he discovered how much they were charging for it. We continued down Rua São Jose and then up towards the Rohsario church. Along the way we came across this remarkably little building.
As we continued down the road, we had a good view of Ouro Preto’s most famous rock formation. Some people called it the “witch’s nose” or “the old woman.”
Walking back to town, we found a passage up towards the Carmelite church.
The church had been closed when John, our tour guide, had been taking us around the city. But today it was open and as it is the most famous church in the city. As usual, inside the building we were not supposed to take pictures. But managed to snap this one of the ceiling of the nave with the iPhone’s front-facing camera while pretending to be just checking my texts.
We walked past the market near São Francisco
to a restaurant we had seen a couple days before. It was a tiny cottage that had once been an artist’s studio, and the dining room on the second floor was had windows only all sides with beautiful views of the city and the surrounding countryside.
At two o’clock our driver met us and drove us two hours to Belo Horizonte. Like all Americans, I had heard about Rio de Janeiro and São Paolo, but I had never heard of Brazil’s third largest city. We arrived with several hours to spare, but the airport in this city was somewhat more pleasant that GRU was.
The flight to Rio was hardly as romantic as it was in those films from the forties and fifties. Azul airlines is not a bad carrier, but it definitely like Jet Blue or Southwest and not those great PanAmerican flights of the past. We were met at the airport by an older guy named Carlos who spoke good English. Not only could he speak, but he never stopped talking as he drove us to our hotel on Ipanema beach.
We have a totally great room here. It is not as wonderful as the one Fred Astaire had on Copacabana Beach — yes I know that was a set on the RKO lot in Encino — but we do have a great view.
Tomorrow we have a city tour set up.
