We had an unpleasant surprise this morning. After breakfast, as we started to pack up our things for the day, we discovered that we no longer had our camera. Apparently last night when we returned from town we left it behind in a cab. The staff at the hotel were sympathetic, but we were realistic enough to know that there was not much chance of us seeing it again.
We had not scheduled any activity for today before we left Los Angeles. But reading some of the guidebooks we learned that there was another colonial town named Mariana nearby and that there was a train between the two towns that was a tourist attraction in itself. And really, the station should be as well.
We arrived in plenty of time to get a seat. We had been told that on the way to Mariana everybody wanted to sit on the right side of the train and on the way back on the left side. So, we wanted to be there early enough to get good seats.
It’s an old diesel train with wooden seats that flip back and forth.
The train pulled out of the station and we went mostly through some pretty unimpressive countryside. We definitely figured out that Ouro Preto is far more affluent that some of the surrounding areas. Yet there would be occasional moments with stunning vistas
and, what everybody wanted to see the most, an occasional waterfall.
Our first sight of the Mariana made us wonder if we had made it on the right train after all. It was hardly as cute as Ouro Preto at all; in fact, it looked more like some small city in the Mexican interior. But once we walked a few blocks further we found a charming historical center. There are several squares. One is dominated by the twin Franciscan and Carmelite churches.
A historical note here. These were not monasteries as they doubtless would have been anywhere in New Spain. I am not sure what the Portuguese did with the younger sons and the less-than-marriage daughters, but apparently they did not force them to enter convents. Instead these churches were built by laymen who were members of “third orders.” The grandeur of some of the churches represents a sort of rivalry among the groups. Today, I suppose, that same enthusiasm would be channeled into building sports facilities for your college teams.
We went into the church on the right, the Carmelite church. This building was badly damaged by a fire in the early 1990’s. There were photographs showing how serious the damage was.
But today it has been completely restored inside and out.
Across the square was the old government buildings. For a time, Marianas was the administrative center of Minas Gerais.
It had started to rain while we were there, so no matter how dull the exhibits were, John was loathe to leave.
But I finally convinced him to go out into the rain. Unlike me, he had come prepared.
The reason we were hurrying was that I wanted to go to the cathedral. Not because it is all that impressive a colonial building. It really is not. In fact, to me it vaguely looked like the inspiration for many Southern Pacific Railway stations.
No, the attraction here is the organ. This is an old instruments, but it is not just any old instrument. This is perhaps the only Arp Schitger organ in the Americas.
Schnitger was one of the two greatest organ builders of the German Baroque, and his work defines what we call the North German School. Bach played mostly on Schnitger organs, and the elaborate inner voices in his fugues assume the clear, bright tones of the Schnitger instruments.
Nobody is completely sure how this organ happens to be here in a small town in the interior of Brazil, but it has been here for centuries. The best guess is that Schnitger may have built it for a church in Portugal, but for some reason they decided to not keep it. We think the King of Portugal may have given it as a present to the Bishop of Manaus. Like Ouro Preto, this was a gold town and the Portuguese loved gold.
We heard a fairly eclectic concert by Elisa Freixo, one of the cathedral’s resident organists. Afterwards, she invited the audience up to to the loft so she could explain the nature of organs and organ building. It was pretty much all in Portuguese, though she did ask for a couple questions from English speakers.
After the concert, we walked to the main square. It is a lovely tree-shaped spot. There were lots of Christmas decorations here, but somehow I did not seem to photograph them.
We had lunch at a what Brazilians call a “self-service” restaurant. This is a buffet where your plate is weighed and you are charged based on how much food you have on your plate. It was reasonably good and quite cheap. I think the bill for the two of us, including drinks, came to about 12 dollars.
After that, it was time to return to the Mariana train station
and head back to Ouro Preto.
