Don't miss a tour of São Paulo, the megalopolis that never sleeps

São Paulo, a rich history from the bandirantes to the financiers

The city of São Paulo takes its name from the founding date of the “Pátio do Colégio”  college, on January 25, day of the conversion of Saint Paul, chosen by Father José de Anchieta. It is from this building that the small town became the third largest city in the world.

With 12 million inhabitants on 1500 km2, São Paulo is today the figurehead of the Brazilian economy and has the largest GDP south of the equator. However, isolated from the coast by mountains, it has not always been so. Its economy had been relatively stagnant for a long time because of a lack of easy access to the rest of the Portuguese colony scattered along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean.

It was, from the start however, a strategic base for the expansion of Portuguese settlers into the interior of Brazil through the expeditions of the famous “Bandeirantes.” Mostly a mix of Portuguese and natives, these reckless adventurers, organized into small armies of several hundred men, are now part of the local folklore although their image has been softened, becoming one of brave pioneers exploring the vast expanses of Brazil.

In fact, from the sixteenth century, they travelled around São Paulo and the surrounding areas capturing Indians to sell as slaves and looking for precious metals. At the same time, these pioneers opened vast territories for colonization going north beyond Minas Gerais to the marshes of the Pantanal in the south. This was beyond the limits of the Treaty of Tordesillias, which shared the South between Portuguese and Spanish. The legends around these fierce warriors are numerous and they are credited with the discovery of many deposits of gold and diamonds, but also the capture and death of tens of thousands of Indians, like many Jesuit and Quilombola communities. They are in any case representatives of the “Conquest of the West” in Brazil.

Mineral reserves became quickly exhausted however, and in the eighteenth century, it was to the cane and its precious sugar that the “Paulistanos” then turned, to send it to Europe through the “Calçada do Lorena,” the first road to the coast and the port of Santos. A century later, it was the “black gold,” coffee that gave an economic lift to the city thanks to the possibility of large-scale export via the first railway line to Santos built by the English.

With its development, the region of São Paulo became very attractive for new waves of settlers from around the world, mainly Italian but also Spanish, Lebanese, Syrian and even Japanese, which now represents the largest group of immigrants. Today we find their influences in the local cuisine, São Paulo serves 1 million pizzas a day! An interesting cultural cosmopolitanism to discover when visiting the city.

In this ever – growing city, the population doubled between 1880 and 1895 and reached its first million inhabitants before the 1930s, 6 million in 1970 and 10 million in 2000. At the same time the city was modernizing and beginning to become an important industrial center in direct competition with Belo Horizonte further north, and Rio, the then capital of Brazil. This economic, political and cultural rivalry would never stop and would be one of the reasons for the construction of Brasilia.

In the second half of the twentieth century, the development of other industries in the rest of the country pushed the city to turn more towards the tertiary sector and big companies began to settle along the famous 2.7 kilometers of Avenida Paulista, which became the true financial heart of Brazil, supplanting Rio de Janeiro. On this occasion, the former homes of the “Barons do café” that bordered it, would be demolished and replaced by skyscrapers. Some however, have been preserved and classified as heritage sites and travelers see them during their tours of São Paulo.

São Paulo, a Latin megalopolis and the economic heart of Brazil

The Amazon offers nature with extraordinary gigantism, São Paulo is its urban counterpart.

São Paulo is a huge city, so big that it is practically impossible to live on one side and work on the opposite, or you will spend most of your day in the legendary traffic jams or the maze of public transport. It is hard to imagine such a metropolis, even seen from aircraft during the landing, it seems to extend to infinity. With its peripheral cities, São Paulo represents no less than 21 million inhabitants, and has 2 airports, Congonhas in the city, only for domestic flights and Guarulhos 25km from the center taking charge of international flights. An important detail when planning a stopover.

A city of disproportion in many ways, the largest megalopolis of the southern hemisphere is a city of extremes, where the historical heritage of European charm rubs shoulders with the ostentatious modernity of the glass towers on Avenida Paulista. There are luxury residences inhabited by an economic elite with extravagant tastes sometimes concentrated in upscale neighborhoods such as the “Gardens” of Pinheiros area, but also side by side with the immense favelas that surround the city. These were more than 600 in number at the last census, places such as Paraisópolis house as many as 100,000 inhabitants.

It is also the city with the largest helicopter fleet in the world. Brazil’s first hub with 30% of flights in the country, its air traffic is particularly intense and the air bridge between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro is the densest in the world with 214 flights on average per day between the two cities.

On the financial side, the GDP of São Paulo in 2018 totaled US$ 11,602 per capita. The city houses the national headquarters of 63 international groups, 17 of the 20 largest banks and B3, the stock exchange of Brazil, which has a wealth of 13 billion dollars. It is also one of the 10 most expensive cities in the world.

With São Paulo, we are far from the image of an essentially rural and underdeveloped Brazil. For travelers, a trip to São Paulo and the discovery of the life of the paulistas makes it possible to grasp the paradox of an urban Brazil at the cutting edge of technology. However, the expansion crusades of this modern-day population takes place on the home of a very traditional people, as with all vast spaces in Brazil, they were originally populated with indigenous tribes living by immutable life styles for millennia.

A São Paulo tour is a cultural stopover on your trip to Brazil

During your trip to São Paulo, you can also enjoy many attractions, buildings, landmarks and museums. However, the remarkable places are not necessarily close to each other and it will often be necessary to take transport to go from one to another.

We start with one of the most emblematic streets of the city, Avenida Paulista.   Part of the Broadway of the tropics at 2.7 kilometers long, it is a real showcase of São Paulo and presents travelers with the epitome of commotion in a tropical megalopolis. There are many international companies that have settled there and there are many luxury shops and other shopping centers that will delight shoppers.

Among the must-see attractions on this avenue is the MASP, the largest art museum in Latin America, which offers superb collections of classical pieces as well as the exhibitions of contemporary Brazilian and foreign artists. After visiting the museum, you can cross the street to bathe in the nature of the Atlantic rainforest enclave Trianon Park, a charming area created by the French landscape gardener Paul Villon in the late nineteenth century, rich in local species.

You can then go to discover Ibirapuera Park. A remarkable ode to modernism, designed by the landscape architect Burle Marx, the green lung of São Paulo – reminiscent of Central Park in New York – houses buildings designed by the famous architect Oscar Niemeyer such as the Auditorium , the Museum of Modern Art of Sáo Paulo and the Afro Museu Brazil. You can also visit the Museum of Contemporary Art nearby or admire the monument to the glory of Pedro Alvarez Cabral, the Portuguese discoverer of Brazil.

And to finish the tour of museums, a visit to the Pinacoteca, the oldest museum in São Paulo (inaugurated in 1905) is mandatory. This museum, with over 10,000 works dating from the nineteenth and twentieth century, has the most important Brazilian artistic heritage of the world.

Another site not to be missed, is the Metropolitan Cathedral of São Paulo, also known as Catedral da Sé. Built between 1913 and 1954 on the site of the first church of São Paulo, this neogothic cathedral is one of the 5 largest in the world of this type. Restored in 2002, this imposing building stands at 92 meters high and can accommodate no less than 8,800 faithful on mass days, in a majestic setting with a 12,000-tube organ. Just in front of it is the Marco Zero monument of the city of São Paulo and the beautiful Praça da Sé square. Further on, you can visit the famous Patio do Colégio, the place of the first building of the city, which became a college then city hall and today is a museum.

Among the other beautiful buildings to discover, the Teatro Municipal de São Paulo, inspired by the Parisian Palais Garnier and completed in 1911, is one of the masterpieces of the architecture of the city. A reflection of the power and wealth of the region’s great Barons of coffee, often of Italian origin, who wished to have a place worthy of the great European capitals. It allows you to imagine the fortune of the Paulista elite at this time and is the starting point of Brazilian Modern Art that was born during the week of Modern Art in 1922. Felisberto Ranzini, who built it is also the engineer who brought to life the Mercado Municipal Paulistano with its beautiful facade and rich stained glass windows.

It brings together no less than 290 stalls that offer a rich display of drinks and various foods on the 12,600 sqm floor space. There are restaurants to appreciate the diverse flavors, this large indoor market will especially delight those of gastronomic curiosity who will not be able to pass up a Mortadella sandwich, the icon of Mercadão.

And to end on an original note, why not go strolling in the Liberdade district and discover a lesser known part of São Paulo? It is in this neighborhood that a large part of the Japanese diaspora community has settled and some streets seem imported directly from Tokyo!