As I said in the Rio thread, I went to Brazil earlier in the summer (it was actually winter there). Before going to Rio, I spent a couple of days in São Paulo. Here are some of the photos from the part of the trip:
São Paulo, São Paulo!
These are a couple of the photos that I snapped from my hotel room in the Jardins area of São Paulo. I didn't take any street level photos of the immediate area near the hotel, but there wasn't much to see there anyway.
1.
2.
3.
This was a security guard stand for one of the houses or buildings near my hotel. It was very common for there to be security guard stands on the streets outside of houses in this neighborhood, which I believe is an upper class area of the city. Most of the apartment buildings and houses in this area were behind tall iron fences with cameras trained on the sidewalk, just like the fence that the guard is sitting outside of...
4.
The streets of São Paulo
5.
6.
Motorcyclists in the major cities in Brazil make extra lanes out of the lane markers on the streets and highways. This is illegal pretty much everywhere in the U.S., and extremely dangerous, so it was pretty fascinating to see this done so non-chalantly...
7.
Centro Velho, São Paulo (Historic Center)
8.
Catedral da Sé de São Paulo
9.
10.
Holiday Mass
The day I toured São Paulo happened to be a national holiday in Brazil (Corpus Christi for the Catholic readers). By coincidence, I was at the main cathedral taking photos right as the holiday mass service began:
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
Praça da Sé (Plaza of the Cathedral)
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
While walking through the downtown area we came across some parking attendants fighting for customers:
22.
He won:
23.
24.
25.
In addition to it being a holiday weekend, it also happened to be the weekend of Gay Pride in São Paulo. This was a fair/outdoor concert to kick off the events and to celebrity the 10th anniversary of an anti-Homophobia federal law in Brazil.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
This is the main theater in the Historical Center.
31.
The theater was not opened to the public, but the doors were open so I managed to capture a few shots of the interior.
32.
Mercado Municipal de São Paulo (Municipal Market)
This is Brazil's version of Eataly. The market was opened in the 1930s and recently restored.
34.
35.
36.
37.
Back outside...
38.
39.
40.
A polícia: The police stopping a motorcyclist.
41.
Estação da Luz (Luz Station)
By this time I started to get tired and wasn't thinking proper, so I managed to not get a good exterior shot of the main train station. But it's a really nice station. It reminds me of London's Victoria Station.
42.
43.
Back outside...
44.
45.
46.
Rua Oscar Freire
The people of São Paulo like to explain this street as the Rodeo Drive of Brazil:
47.
48.
49.
Avenida Paulista
And if Oscar Freire is the Rodeo Drive, then I guess Avenida Paulista would be the Fifth Avenue:
50.
51.
52.
I wasn't able to get any photos of Ibirapuera Park, which is explained as the Central Park of São Paulo (although I did visit the park). I also didn't have time to visit Liberdade, the Japanese immigrant area of the city.