Sao Paulo: what to see, where to stay and how to get around
Sao Paulo began as a mission school in a field, on the twenty-fifth of January 1554, and for three hundred years it was a small town on a plateau that nobody wanted. Then coffee was planted in the state, the railway was built to carry it to the port, and within forty years this became the industrial capital of South America. This walk is the old centre that money built and then abandoned for the ridge. Two and a half hours, and do it in daylight.
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A short history of Sao Paulo
On 25 January 1554 the Jesuits Manuel da Nóbrega and José de Anchieta set up a small mission on a plateau above the coast, and from there the bandeirantes expeditions later set out into the interior of the continent. In 1822, beside the Ipiranga stream in the city, Prince Pedro proclaimed Brazil's independence. At the end of the 19th century the coffee boom brought a huge wave of immigration, mainly from Italy, and in 1908 the ship Kasato Maru arrived with the first immigrants from Japan. Today it is the largest city in the Americas, with more than 11 million inhabitants. The city is also home to the largest Jewish community in Brazil, which began in the Bom Retiro district.
The ten best sights in Sao Paulo
1Praca da SeKilometre zero of the city and of the state's roads. Busy, scruffy, and the one place from which every distance here is measured.
2Catedral da SeBegun in 1913 and finished in 1954 for the city's four hundredth birthday. The capitals inside are carved with Brazilian coffee beans, pineapples and armadillos instead of acanthus.
3Patio do ColegioThe exact spot where the city began: a Jesuit mission school founded on the twenty-fifth of January 1554 to convert the Tupi. The city's birthday is still that date.
4Mosteiro de Sao BentoBenedictines have been on this site since 1598. The monks sing Gregorian chant at the Sunday ten o'clock mass and sell their own bread at the door.
5Edificio MartinelliThe first skyscraper in South America, finished in 1929. Its Italian owner moved into the top floor himself to prove it would not fall down.
6Farol SantanderA 1947 tower modelled on the Empire State Building, now a cultural centre with the best open-air view of the centre from its roof.
7Theatro MunicipalOpened in 1911 on coffee money, in deliberate imitation of the Paris Opera. The Modern Art Week of 1922 was held here and was booed.
8Viaduto do ChaThe first viaduct in the city, from 1892, built over a valley that was once a tea plantation — which is what the name means.
9Edificio CopanOscar Niemeyer's wave, with one thousand one hundred and sixty apartments and its own postcode. About two thousand people live inside it.
10Edificio ItaliaForty-six floors from 1965 with a restaurant and bar on top. The view is the reason, and the drink is the price of it.
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What is an audio walk?
Tours in Sao Paulo →A guide in your headphones: open the walk on our site, walk from stop to stop, and at each one your phone tells its story. No guide, no group, and free. This is the first walk in Sao Paulo:
Free walking tours in Sao Paulo
Where the City Began
Sao Paulo began as a mission school in a field, on the twenty-fifth of January 1554, and for three hundred years it was a small town on a plateau that nobody wanted. Then coffee was planted in the state, the railway was built to carry it to the port, and within forty years this became the industrial capital of South America. This walk is the old centre that money built and then abandoned for the ridge. Two and a half hours, and do it in daylight.
- Patio do Colegio · The exact spot. Two Jesuits, Manuel da Nobrega and Jose de Anchieta, founded a mission school here on the twenty-fifth of January 1554 to convert the Tupi, and the city still keeps that date as its birthday. The plateau was chosen because it was defensible and because the rivers ran inland, which is why Sao Paulo is the only major Brazilian city that is not on the sea.
- Catedral da Se · Begun in 1913 and finished in 1954 for the four hundredth birthday. Look at the tops of the columns: instead of acanthus leaves they are carved with coffee branches, pineapples and armadillos, which was a deliberate decision to put Brazil into a Gothic building.
- Mosteiro de Sao Bento · Benedictines have held this plot since 1598. The monks still sing Gregorian chant at the ten o'clock mass on Sunday and sell bread they bake themselves at a window by the door, which has been going on in some form for four centuries.
- Edificio Martinelli · The first skyscraper in South America, finished in 1929 by an Italian immigrant who had arrived with nothing. Nobody believed a thirty-storey building would stand on this ground, so he moved into the penthouse himself and lived there, which settled the argument.
- Theatro Municipal · Built in 1911 on coffee money in the image of the Paris Opera. In February 1922 the Modern Art Week was held here — seven nights of poetry, painting and music that announced a Brazilian modernism — and the audience whistled and jeered through most of it.
- Mercado Municipal · Opened in 1933, with thirty-two German stained glass windows showing farming and cattle. Two things are eaten here: a mortadella sandwich with half a kilo of meat in it, and a salt cod pastry. Both are shared, whatever the stallholder says.
The Ridge
In 1891 a group of coffee barons cut an avenue along the highest ridge in the city and built mansions on it, because the air was better up there than in the valley. Within seventy years the banks had pulled nearly all of them down and put up towers, and the avenue became the financial spine of Brazil. On Sunday it closes to cars entirely and the whole city walks on it. Two hours, and Sunday is the day.
- Avenida Paulista · Opened in 1891 along the watershed between two river valleys, which is why it is flat and everything around it is not. Of the roughly thirty mansions built by coffee families, three survive.
- MASP · Lina Bo Bardi hung the building from four red concrete beams so that the view through to the valley would stay open, a condition of the land donation. Inside, she put the paintings on glass easels standing in the middle of the room with the labels on the back, so that nobody is told what to think before they look.
- Parque Trianon · A surviving fragment of Atlantic forest, kept since 1892 because the avenue's developers wanted a garden opposite the mansions. Less than twelve per cent of that forest is left anywhere in Brazil.
- Casa das Rosas · One of the three mansions left, built in 1935 by the son of the architect who laid out the avenue. His daughter refused to sell it to developers and lived in it until 1986, which is the only reason it stands.
- Instituto Moreira Salles · Free, and it holds one of the largest photographic archives in Latin America — around two million images, including the earliest photographs taken in Brazil.
- Edificio Copan · Niemeyer's curve, finished in 1966 after fifteen years. One thousand one hundred and sixty apartments, about two thousand residents, its own postcode and seventy-two commercial units on the ground floor — a city block that happens to be one building.
Green, Concrete and the Other Half
The third walk is the city's answer to itself: a park built for its four hundredth birthday with buildings by Niemeyer in it, a quarter where two million descendants of Japanese immigrants live, and the factory a woman turned into the best public building in Brazil. Three hours with one metro ride, and this is the half of the city that is pleasant rather than impressive.
- Parque Ibirapuera · Opened in 1954 for the city's four hundredth anniversary, with the buildings by Oscar Niemeyer and the planting by Roberto Burle Marx. Niemeyer later said he regretted the marquise — the long free-form canopy — because it was too small for what the park became.
- Museu Afro Brasil · Around five million enslaved Africans were landed in Brazil, roughly ten times the number taken to North America, and Brazil was the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery, in 1888. This museum covers five hundred years of that and of what came out of it.
- MAC USP · The university's modern collection in a Niemeyer block, free, with a terrace on the roof that most visitors never find. Matisse, Modigliani and the Brazilian modernists in one building.
- Liberdade · Japanese immigration to Brazil began in 1908 with a single ship of seven hundred and eighty-one people, sent because the coffee plantations needed labour after abolition. Brazil now holds the largest Japanese community outside Japan, about two million people, and this is its centre.
- Sesc Pompeia · Lina Bo Bardi was asked in 1977 to replace a drum factory with a cultural centre. She found people already playing football among the sheds, kept every shed exactly as it was, and added two raw concrete towers joined by walkways. Architects come to Sao Paulo for this.
- Beco do Batman · Two alleys in Vila Madalena painted continuously since the 1980s and repainted constantly, so nothing you photograph will be there next year. In 2017 the city made street art on private walls legal with the owner's consent.
Getting to Sao Paulo and getting around
- Guarulhos Airport · Twenty-five kilometres north-east and the busiest airport in South America. The airport bus to Praca da Republica is the sane choice; the taxi can take two hours.
- Congonhas · The domestic airport, inside the city and eight kilometres from the centre. The Rio shuttle leaves from here every half hour.
- Tiete bus terminal · One of the largest bus terminals in the world, with buses to every state in Brazil and to five other countries. It has its own metro station.
- Estacao da Luz · Built in England, shipped in pieces and raised here in 1901 to move coffee to the port. The clock tower is a copy of one in Melbourne.
- Julio Prestes · The other coffee station, from 1938, whose great hall was turned into Sala Sao Paulo — one of the best concert halls in the Americas.
Cheap eats in Sao Paulo
Eight counters where Sao Paulo eats standing. The city has more Italian and Japanese descendants than almost anywhere outside those countries, and the food follows: pizza on Sunday night is a civic habit, and there are more pizzerias here than in Rome. The set lunch is the prato feito — rice, beans, meat and salad on one plate — and it is served from noon to three.
- Mercado Municipal · Open 6 to 6, Sunday to 4
- Mercado de Pinheiros · Closed Sunday afternoon
- Liberdade · Weekends 9 to 7
- Bixiga · Sunday lunch · book ahead
- Rua Augusta · From 10pm · Thursday to Saturday
- Vila Madalena · From six · busiest Thursday
- Praca da Republica · Sunday 9 to 3
- Embu das Artes · Weekends only
Museums in Sao Paulo
- MASP · Closed Monday · free on Tuesday
- Pinacoteca · Closed Tuesday
- Museu Afro Brasil · Closed Monday · free on Saturday
- Museu do Ipiranga · Closed Monday · book online
- Museu da Lingua Portuguesa · Closed Monday
- Museu do Futebol · Closed Monday
- Catavento · Closed Monday
Parks and gardens in Sao Paulo
- Parque Ibirapuera · Free · open 5am to midnight
- Parque Villa-Lobos · Free · busiest Sunday
- Parque Burle Marx · Free · closed Monday
- Parque da Luz · Free · daylight only
- Jardim Botanico · Closed Monday
- Cantareira · Entry by trail · book ahead
- Minhocao · Nights and all Sunday
Things to do in Sao Paulo with kids
- Instituto Butantan · Closed Monday
- Catavento · Closed Monday
- Aquario de Sao Paulo · Open every day
- Zoologico · Open 9 to 5
- Parque Ibirapuera · Free · bikes at the gates
- Museu do Futebol · Closed Monday
- Paranapiacaba · A day trip · often in cloud
Nature and day trips near Sao Paulo
- Serra do Mar · An hour out · go with a guide
- Santos · Trains and buses hourly
- Guaruja · Ferry from Santos
- Campos do Jordao · Two and a half hours · July is the season
- Paranapiacaba · An hour by train
- Cantareira · Free · book the trail in advance
- Embu das Artes · Weekends · an hour west
Live music in Sao Paulo
- Sala Sao Paulo · Season all year · cheap seats upstairs
- Theatro Municipal · Check the free midday series
- Sesc Pompeia · Check the monthly programme
- Vila Madalena · Wednesday to Saturday
- Rua Augusta · Friday and Saturday
- Allianz Parque · Check what is on this month
- Auditorio Ibirapuera · Many concerts are free
Frequently asked questions about Sao Paulo
What is there to see in Sao Paulo?
The top sights in Sao Paulo are Praca da Se, Catedral da Se and Patio do Colegio. The full list on this page has 10 sights, each with a photo and a short note.
How many days do you need in Sao Paulo?
Three to four days are enough to see the best of Sao Paulo without rushing, including at least one walking tour.
Is there a free walking tour in Sao Paulo?
Yes. sleepntrip has 3 free audio walks in Sao Paulo, with no guide and no group: your phone tells the story at every stop. The first one: Where the City Began.
How do you get to Sao Paulo and get around?
The main ways are Guarulhos Airport, Congonhas and Tiete bus terminal. Full details are in the transport section on this page.
Where to stay in Sao Paulo, and for how much?
sleepntrip shows only rooms in Sao Paulo that meet nine conditions: a good location, high guest scores, cleanliness, and a price of up to $80 a night for two. Pick your dates and see what is free.
Looking for a hotel in Sao Paulo for your dates?
Only rooms that meet nine conditions, up to $80 a night.