Hustling, Bustling City with a View

View of Sao Paulo from Benespa

On Friday we took the train to Sao Bento Station and emerged into the heart of what we’d call downtown Sao Paulo. Wow, this is one busy place.  People just rushing out from the subway into the streets. As with many downtowns this area has many local and international banks, the stock exchange, the federal buildings, etc. (think Wall Street).  As we head into the thick of things we find that there are a few blocks that are open to pedestrians only.  So we walk between the buildings looking all around.  The banks have those gigantic iron clad doors that make you think the Nephelim once lived here.  There are lots of vendors and bootleg hawkers along the way touting their goods which vary from toys to the latest faux handbags, food, bottles of water, clothing etc.  There is also live entertainment from people looking to make some money for the day singing traditional songs, dancing, telling jokes (I think that’s what they were doing), or just playing various instruments.  You truly can’t get bored in this city.  All over Sao Paulo you will find natural juice bars. These vendors make smoothies with all kinds of fruits – many which we have never heard of.  Of course we indulged in the famous Acai which is often mixed with banana.  Truly scrumptious!  In most neighborhoods a smoothie costs about R$3.80.

Sao Paulo is easily navigated by bus and train

We head to the 2nd tallest building in Sao Paulo – Banespa.  This building houses the Bank of Sao Paulo and looks like the Empire State Building in NYC. We tried to visit the day before but got there too late: tours stop at 3pm. So this time we decided to be extra early, so we get there at 2:45pm (lol, that’s how we do it, waiting to the near last minute – perhaps by the end of this trip we’ll learn that it really is a good idea to show up early)   Anyhow, though there was a long line of tourists waiting we made it in.  We actually ran into an American with his Brazilian wife and brother in law (PTL, someone we can speak English to). They tell us a bunch of useful stuff about Sao Paulo and all of Brazil.  They recommended food we should try, restaurants we should check out, places to visit, etc. Well, we finally hop on the elevator (only 15 people were allowed at a time)  and took it to the 25^th floor where we got off and took another elevator, which took us to the 32^nd floor (only 10 people allowed at a time… we moved to the front of the line J) . Then we climbed 5 flights of stairs to the waiting room and then took another spiral stair up to the main deck (if you come to Sao Paulo you’d better have some walking shoes).  When we got to the observation deck, we were awed by the panoramic view of the city of Sao Paulo.  All around this incredible city are “millions” of tall buildings, most of which appear to be condos.  You can also see how the city keeps spreading for miles and miles out toward the mountains. Wow.  Unfortunately, we could only view the city for a strict 5 minutes so you have to take pictures quickly. I just turned on the video camera and circled the deck so we could capture the full scope of Sao Paulo. (I’d been to the top of the Empire State and I’d have to say this one definitely wins out over that.) 


From there we made our way down a few blocks to Mercado Municipal de São Paulo through the dense foot traffic and steep sidewalks. The Municipal Market was amazing.  The bright colors and aromas keep you walking through the market.  There were so many fruit stands, all with perfect fruit.  Cheese, nuts, wines, meats, spices and vegetables are all sold here.  I’ve never seen so many variations of olives. After wandering around for a bit and failing to find tomatoes for dinner we decide it’s time to eat.

Municipal Market 

We went to an upstairs foodcourt where there are a number of restaurants that are just packed with people.  That American couple recommended that we try a “Pastel”.  This is a Brazilian pastry filled with meet or cheese.  So we find a restaurant, go to the window to order the food (have another terrifying/disasterous Portuguese exchange… still worked out in the end.) We ordered a Pastel that was filled with cod ($R12/each).  Then Mu goes and grabs a table for us and I wait for our number to be called. The place was packed so after standing for like 10 minutes one of the servers asks me for our order number and tells me to go ahead and sit, he’ll bring it over.  We go ahead and chow down… the crust was nice and flakey like a pie crust – (delicious), the filling was, eh, so so.  We take off from there, find our tomatoes and head home.

Pastels before and after

The day we got turned down from entering Banespa we walked down the street a few blocks to find the Catedral da Sé de São Paulo. This cathedral is the largest church in Sao Paulo and has a capacity for 8,000 people.  We have to walk through a park to get there where you see all sorts of business types getting their shoes shined (saw a lot of that in SP, High Fashion for sure.) We went into the cathedral and it’s pretty magnificent. It has high vaulted ceilings, huge carved columns, rows and rows of pews, detailed glass work and carvings and alters of all sorts around the perimeter. We sit and take pictures and just soak in the architecture. 

Sé Cathederal with amazing architecture and art pieces

That’s pretty much our downtown experience.  A little overwhelming for me because of all the people, but there are a lot of interesting things to see.  

Next time, walking to Jarim-Paulista and Japan meets Sao Paulo.