Afoot in Sao Paulo

Most tourists fly down to Rio, but Sao Paulo is the industrial and financial center of Brazil. With a population of about 16 million, it’s the third-largest city in the world. And despite the competition from Rio, Sao Paulo has a lot to offer recreational visitors as well as business travellers. For openers, it turned out to be a great place to practice my favorite form of tourism: ‘Sightseeing by wandering around.’

Here are some reasons why:

* Wide, inviting parkways lined with ornate, often Mediterranean-styled museums, theaters and government buldings. Lots of parks and plazas along them to lounge in when tired.

* Colorful street markets, without the aggresive hustling and hassling that’s all too common in other cities’ markets.

* Two antique train stations that looked as though they’d been transplanted from 1890-something Europe --- and whose architects probably had been --- but with modern trains that offered a variety of suburban sightseeing options.

* Nightlife that the Lonely Planet Guide calls ‘Approaching the excitement and intensity of New York’s.’

* Police who seemed genuinely interested in making foreign tourists feel comfortable in their city and, above all, keeping them safe.

Quick Tips:

Security: The large rectangular park across from the airport bus terminal is Praca de Republica --- a place not even locals will walk through. The wide promenade on your right as you face the plaza is safe to walk through it in daylight. At night, use the well-lighted, well-patrolled subway tunnels, which provide access to streets on all four sides of the park. The tourism office is directly across the park from the airport terminal.

Language: The ‘c’ in ‘Praca’ has a cedilla --- the squiggly downward mark similar to the French character in ‘Provencal’--- and the word’s pronounced ‘PRAH sah.’ Portugese has some transliterations that will sound strange to English-speakers. At the beginning of words, ‘R’ takes the sound of hard ‘H’ in English or ‘J’ in Spanish. An ‘L’ at the end of a word is hardly voiced at all: The Brazilian monetary unit, REAL, sounds something like ‘Hay-OW.’ If you can’t communicate in Portugese, try Spanish. It’s the second language for many educated Brazilians.

Best Way To Get Around:

Sao Paulo has three fast, clean, modern subways (‘Metro’) lines; the two major ones intersect at Praca de Se, about 1200 meters (3/4 mile) southeast of the Italia Tower. These, in turn, will connect you with the three principal commuter rail stations, Luz, Barra Funda, and Bras/Roosevelt. (See my separate entry on sightseeing by commuter rail.)

I never saw the need for a taxi during my five days in Sao Paulo.

The Bourbon calls itself a ‘European-style boutique’ hotel. In the sense of ‘relatively small’ and ‘uncrowded’, the term fits. But ‘boutique’ implies something unique or memorable and, aside from a great view, I can recall little memorable about my stay here. In fact, I had difficulty remembering enough detail to justify a journal entry.

That said, Hotel Bourbon is affiliated with Utell International, a reputable and reliable chain my travel agent frequently recommends and whose hotels I’ve used, and approved of, in several other cities.

I arrived after 10 p.m. and found it to be directly across the street from a popular late-night restaurant and wildly popular gay nightclub, whose crowds overflowed the sidewalk and milled about in the street. (To its credit, the hotel had good sound insulation and the crowd noise didn’t make it inside the building.)

The Bourbon was the closest name-brand hotel to the airport bus terminal, a plus. It was several blocks from the main theater/restaurant districts and separated from them by a large, doper-infested park, a distinct minus. One had to detour around the park, Praca de Republica, in daylight; at night, reaching my favorite restaurant required using a lighted underground pedestrian tunnel connected with the ‘Metro’ system or a very roundabout surface route.

Utell Hotels generally fall into the upper middle price range. Based the most recently published prices, Hotel Bourbon is somewhat above that at U.S $129 single, $138 double. Though it didn’t have any memorable features for me to write about, there were no memorable shortcomings either. I have no problem recommending this hotel, but suggest shopping around.

Taking the restaurant-only elevator to the top of Italia Tower, Sao Paulo’s tallest building, I used ‘I came to look at the menu’ as an excuse to visit the open observation platform completely surrounding the penthouse and this superb dining room within it. The only trouble with this ploy is that, once you see the menu and the room itself, you’ll be hooked into staying for dinner.

The restaurant was called ‘Terraco Italia’. Once I had my first dinner there, I never considered any other. Rarely do decor, food quality, service and view all come together as well as they did here. Practically every table had a skyline view in at least two directions. Diners at the far end of the room enjoyed marvelous views every which way but North, but these tables were often reserved for groups. (Partial-height dividers helped minimize the effect these large groups had on smaller parties.)

Since my five dinners here were in November 1999, I can’t recall specific menu details. I do recall two or three superb seafood dishes and never any meal that was remotely unsatisfying. All this while watching sunset spread over Sao Paulo’s near-infinite sea of rooftops.

This would have been an expensive restaurant by Brazilian standards, but I’ve paid more at Chicago restaurants that couldn’t come close to the quality here. Terraco Italia, in the Italia Tower, is a place I’ll return to. (The reason I lucked out and had photos for this journal was that I’d wanted my travel agent to see what the restaurant was like.)

On my first afternoon of ‘sightseeing by wandering around,’ I scouted other Sao Paulo restaurants. I saw several with appealing menus and ambiance, mainly along the side streets extending from the northwest side of Praca de Republica. For variety, check these out too.

Though it has several intersections that could terrorize people unaccustomed to walking in big, bustling cities, and a few crime-infested areas you need to avoid, Sao Paulo is a generally pedestrian-friendly city. The wide boulevard called Vale do Anhangabau, from southeast of the theater district to the Luz railstation, is especially appealing. Many of the photos in this journal were taken while walking along it.

The large, park-like Praca de Republica, along whose northwest side the airport buses terminate, is a good place to start a walking tour. The park itself is a high-crime area, but you can safely walk the sidewalks of the streets along its perimeter or, during daylight, the wide promenade between the park and the government buildings on its southwest side. There’s a ‘Metro’ station there and, close to it, a tourism information office with English-speaking guides. Load up on maps, advice on possibly-dangerous areas, and anything else you can glean from them.

Several of the side streets originating on the southeast and northeast sides of Praca de Republica are pedestrian-only malls with lots of conventional shops, fast-food restaurants, sidewalk merchants, street vendors and kiosks. Inexpensive full-service restaurants --- and some fine-dining ones --- abound here.

Walk south and east until you encounter the magnificent Municipal Theater and the plaza unfolding in front of it. If you’re lucky, you’ll walk in on an impromptu concert by a local musical group. (The night I ran into one, they were professionals rather than amateur street musicians, and I took home a CD of theirs that I still sometimes play at bedtime.)

Near here is where you’ll intercept the boulevard called Vale do Anhangabau. Follow this north and east to Estacio Luz --- the ornate train station I mentioned earlier --- and visit the open-air markets. There’s a Metro station here, so you can ride the subway back to your hotel instead of walking. This is an area of cheap budget-priced hotels, which at least one guidebook I’ve read actually recommends, but it’s also a seedy area that I’d personally prefer not to walk through after dark. If your hotel is on the north side of Praca de Republica, as mine was, it’s OK to walk back during daylight or early evening.

> DO visit the tourism office, and get the best map they can give you, before venturing too far from your hotel. Few streets run due North, East, South or West in Sao Paulo and there are many odd angles and intersections to confuse you. Once you get your bearings, and get used to the more challenging intersections, you’ll find walking easy and pleasant.

The tall, modernistic building dominating the Praca do Republica area is Italia Tower. There’s a free, open-air observation terrace atop it. Using it to see which streets went where was even better than reading the map!

For a pleasant escape from Sao Paulo’s traffic, hop on one of the city’s modern electric commuter trains and ride to the end of the line. You’ll discover that the seemingly endless urban sprawl is finite after all. Several of the lines reach rural areas with relatively quiet roads to walk along or pleasant, rather sleepy towns that will provide a welcome slowdown from the urban hulabaloo.

(On occasion, I’d unwind by getting off at the end of the line and then walking back to a previous stop before reboarding. You can buy a daily rail pass that lets you do this.)

The route to Jurubatuba was especially interesting; following a canal with wide, grassy parkways and ending in a quiet, park-like town with a marina just across from the station. There, one could also board an antique diesel-powered rail motor car and ride further down the line. Alas, it broke down a few minutes after I boarded it. I had better luck at Itapevi, where a similar but less wheezy car took me out to the sleepy town of Amador Bueno. (It means ‘Good Lover’ --- need I say more?)

The busiest commuter rail terminal consists of two passageway-connected stations, Bras and Roosevelt, with four lines originating fom them. Another busy one is Barra Funda, with an attractive line west to the aforementioned Itapevi. Metro Linha 3 will take you to either. If you take my suggested walking tour, you can board the first train that comes along, in either direction, at Luz Station. One will take you west to Barra Funda; the other will take you east to Bras/Roosevelt.

There are many more things to see and do in the greater Sao Paulo area than theaters, fountains and world-class traffic. The train is a cheap and pleasant way to get out of town and experience them.