The further north we go, the hotter it gets. This morning, we pulled into the city of Recife and it didn't take long for the temperature to rise to 40C. I must have lost 2 lbs of sweat just waiting for the shuttle bus to drive us into town!
Recife is made up of three islands and has rivers flowing through the town. For this reason, it is often referred to as the Venice of Brazil. Only people who don't know any better would call it that. Certainly no one who has ever set foot in Venice would even dare to make such a comparison.
Recife is made up of three islands and has rivers flowing through the town. For this reason, it is often referred to as the Venice of Brazil. Only people who don't know any better would call it that. Certainly no one who has ever set foot in Venice would even dare to make such a comparison.
Like Salvador, this port was a major player in the slave trading business. As a result, most of the people here are black or mixed race. The colonial part of town is close to the port and contains some wonderful pieces of architecture, like the Governor's Palace above, as well as a lot of rundown old buildings. Since the governor wasn't home, I took a tour of his palace. It is nicely furnished but the main attraction here are the beautiful stained glass windows.
Note – even though it's was a 100 degrees outside, shorts are not allowed in the Governor's Palace. Several tourists got turned away when they tried to get inside. 
Next I headed over to the church of San Francisco to see the golden chapel. Inside the ornate chapel, there are plenty of paintings and all the wooden carvings are covered in gold leaf. For some reason, in this church, all the statues of Christ are adorned with wigs! (take a close look) 
A short walk down to the river brought me to the old prison. These days, the jail cells are being used as souvenir shops. It was an interesting place that quickly filled up once the tour buses started to unload their passengers. 
If you want to check out one of the lamest museums in town, then head down past the smelly fish and vegetable market to the City museum. The 'museum' is located inside one of the old city forts – the Fort of 5 Points. Even though it only cost one Brazilian dollar to get in, you feel like you should be getting some change back. The 'museum' consisted of one small room that had a couple of old photographs and pictures of the way the city looked back in the 1800s. If this is your idea of museum, then do I know a place for you!
No comments:
Post a Comment