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Sao
Paulo,Brazil
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For
visitors and locals alike, the fact that
São Paulo's history extends back for over
four centuries, well beyond the late nineteenth-century
coffee boom, usually goes completely unnoticed.
Sao Paulo was catapulted virtually overnight
from being a sleepy, provincial market town
into one of the western hemisphere's great
cities.
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There are few places in the world that have as
comprehensively turned their backs on the past
as São Paulo has done. In the nineteenth century,
most of colonial São Paulo was levelled and replaced
by a disorganized patchwork of wide avenues and
large buildings, the process repeating itself
ever since; today, not only has the city's colonial
architectual heritage all but vanished, but there's
little physical evidence of the coffee boom decades
either. Nevertheless, a few relics have, somehow,
escaped demolition and offer hints of São Paulo's
bygone eras. What remains is hidden away discreetly
in corners, scattered throughout the city, often
difficult to find but all the more thrilling when
you do. There is no shortage of museums , but
with a few significant exceptions they are disappointing
for a city of São Paulo's stature. Collections
have frequently been allowed to deteriorate and
exhibits are generally poorly displayed. Fortunately,
museum charges are negligible, around $1, and
are only given in the text below where they are
above this figure. There are several sights associated
with the vast influx of immigrants to the city,
and it's worth visiting some of the individual
"bairros" (neighborhoods), detailed
in the text, where the immigrants and their descendants
have established communities: the food, as you'd
expect, is just one reason to do this.
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São
Paulo has quite an imaginative jazz tradition.
The Bourbon Street Music Club, Rua dos Chanés
127, Moema, has a consistently good, though
very expensive (entrance is $17), program
including visiting international artists
and frequent festivals. In newly fashionable
Vila Madalena, there are several jazz venues,
probably the best being Blen Blen Brasil,
Rua Inácio Pereira da Rocha 520. In Bixiga,
the Café Piu-Piu (closed Mon), at Rua 13
de Maio 134, is a lively venue for some
very good jazz and choro, as well as the
most appalling rock and country-and-western
music.
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