Brazil - The Rough Guide to South America on a Budget - page 333

American solidarity, and includes a
library, concert hall, permanent outdoor
exhibition and sculpture of a giant
bloodied hand. Linked by one of
Niemeyer's trademark curvaceous
walkways, to the south side of the
highway is the anthropological museum
Museu Darcy Ribeiro , containing crafts,
bright costumes, and an impressive
three-dimensional map of the continent
beneath a glass floor.
A bus or taxi ride south from metrô
Barra Funda along Avenida Pacaembu
brings you to Estádio do Pacaembu (also
reached by bus #917M from Av Paulista
or #177C-10 from Vila Madalena, or
a 15min walk from metrô Clínicas),
home to Corinthians football club
- although from 2014 Corinthians
matches will be played at the Arena de
São Paulo in Itaquera (see p.334). The
impressive 40,000-seat stadium was
designed by Brasília's other great designer,
Lúcio Costa, at one end of a large square
- Praça Charles Miller - named after the
Englishman who introduced football to
Brazil. The main reason for coming here,
however, is the superb Museu do Futebol
(Tues-Sun 9am-5pm, closed match days;
R$7; allow 3hr). Piecing together how
it became Brazil's greatest national
obsession through enthralling multimedia
displays, the museum has an appeal far
beyond the game itself, from the players,
fans and commentators to the contro-
versies of race and dictatorship in
twentieth-century Brazil.

a look is the Museu de Arte de São Paulo
or MASP (Av Paulista 1578; Tues-Sun
11am-6pm, until 8pm Thurs; R$15, free
Tues), standing on four red stilts floating
above the ground and allowing a view
of the city behind. Upstairs contains a
large collection of Western art, while the
basement below has a very enjoyable and
reasonable buffet. Opposite MASP make
sure you take a stroll along the trails of
the eminently peaceful Parque Siqueira
Campos, pure Atlantic forest landscaped
by Roberto Burle Marx.
Separated from Bixiga by Avenida
Paulista is Jardins , one of São Paulo's
most expensive and fashionable
neighbourhoods, modelled in 1915
according to the principles of the British
Garden City movement, with cool,
leafy streets leading down the hill.
Actually a compendium of three smaller
neighbourhoods - Jardim America,
Jardim Europa and Jardim Paulista - it's
home to swanky villas, condos, top-end
restaurants and bars. Have a walk on and
around Rua Oscar and Rua Augusta , with
their expensive shops and boutiques.

3

Vila Madalena, Pinheiros and
Itaim Bibi
West of Jardins, the bairro of Vila Madalena
is also chock-a-block with nightlife and
restaurants, though with a younger, more
bohemian feel than its neighbour.
Southwards, Pinheiros is rougher around
the edges but also home to some decent
nightlife, and further south, Itaim Bibi is
a chic neighbourhood with galleries, bars
and more good restaurants. Avenida Brig.
Faria Lima is the main drag here, while the
nearby Museu Brasileiro da Escultura at
Avenida Europa 218 (Tues-Sun 10am-
7pm) is home to travelling exhibits of
Brazilian artists and sculptors. Cutting
through Pinheiros is Rua Teodoro
Sampaio, a street lined with music stores,
some of which feature free music
performances on weekends. Nearby, and
worth driving over (especially when
dramatically lit at night), is the 138m-tall,
cable-stayed Octavio Frias de Oliveira
Bridge , a picture-postcard image with
separate roadways passing under a giant
concrete “X”.

Avenida Paulista and Jardins
South of Bixiga, Avenida Paulista is
central São Paulo's third major focal
point, a 3km stretch that in the early
1900s was lined with Art Nouveau
mansions owned by coffee barons.
Redeveloped in the 1960s, it's now lined
with skyscrapers topped by helipads and
TV antennas dramatically lit by different
colours at night. The Casa das Rosas
(Av Paulista 35) gives some sense of
what the avenue once looked like,
a French-style mansion set in a walled
garden that's a huge contrast to the
surrounding steel-and-glass hulks, and
now a state-run museum. Also worth