Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
enough, Sabará's gorgeous
churches
are the real draw, austere on the outside but
choked with spectacular ornamentation inside. Sabará's proximity to Belo Horizonte
(around 20km) and the frequency of the
bus
link makes it an easy day-trip from the
city: start early and avoid visiting on Monday when most sights are closed.
Brief history
Like most towns in the state, Sabará got its start as a gold-mining camp, established
here in the late 1600s by
Borba Gato
, a typical
paulista
cut-throat who combined
Catholic fervour - Sabará's original name was Vila Real de Nossa Senhora da
Conceição de Sabarabuçú - with ruthlessness: his determined extermination of the
local indigenous tribes made gold mining possible here.
Not until forty years after its foundation were the mud huts and stockades of the
early adventurers replaced by stone buildings, and it wasn't until the second quarter
of the eighteenth century, when
gold production
was at its peak, that serious church
building began and the village acquired an air of permanence. By the beginning of the
nineteenth century all the alluvial gold had been exhausted and the town entered a
steep decline. Sophisticated deep-mining techniques introduced by mostly British
companies in the nineteenth century failed to stop the slump, and Sabará became a
small and grindingly poor place; today, the colonial zone is fringed by
favelas
, though
the town itself has certainly benefited from Brazil's recent boom and is safe to wander
around; ArcelorMittal runs a huge steel plant at the east end of town.
2
Praça Santa Rita and around
Standing in
Praça Santa Rita
, you're in the centre not just of the oldest part of Sabará,
but of the oldest inhabited streets in southern Brazil. Today the cobbled square is a
small, humble affair with a bandstand, a couple of cheap restaurants and a bank.
Prefeitura
Rua Dom Pedro II • Mon-Fri 8am-5pm • Free
There are a number of impressive eighteenth-century buildings near Praça Santa Rita,
notably the
Prefeitura
, which you'll pass walking up Rua Dom Pedro II from the bus
stop. Completed around 1773 as the local priest's residence, it became the city hall in
1871. You can poke your head inside the main entrance hall to see the jacaranda
staircase and ceiling paintings, but the rest of the building is off limits.
Teatro Municipal
Rua Dom Pedro II • Daily 8am-noon & 1-5pm • Free
You can take a peek inside the Casa de Opera or
Teatro Municipal
, beyond Praça Santa
Rita on Rua Dom Pedro II, to glimpse the Italian Baroque-style interior, bamboo
ceiling, three circles of boxes and rattan chairs in the orchestra seats. This incarnation
dates back to 1819, though the first opera house was erected around 1770.
Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos Pretos
Praça Melo Viana • Tues-Sun 8-11am & 1-5pm • R$2
A short walk up Rua Dom Pedro II from Praça Santa Rita lies the much bigger
Praça
Melo Viana
, shaded by giant palms and the place to catch local buses. At the top end
lies the unfinished church of
Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos Pretos
, looking a bit like
a ruined castle from the front. Slaves who worked in the gold mines began paying for
it and building it in typical Portuguese-colonial style in 1768, but with the decline of
the mines the money ran out with only the chancel and sacristy completed by 1780.
Although sporadic restarts were made during the nineteenth century, it was never more
than half-built, and when slavery was abolished in 1888 it was left as a memorial.
Today the chancel/chapel and sacristy remain the only covered sections within the
crumbling walls, housing a mildly interesting collection of religious art.
