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M & B

Make a weekend of it

Explore Brazil

You have crossed an ocean. Stay a little longer.

January is high summer here: hot, green, and prone to a dramatic afternoon downpour that clears in an hour. Pack for heat, bring something waterproof, and do not plan your days too tightly.

Itu itself is a historic colonial town that calls itself the City of Exaggerations — a joke it commits to with a giant public telephone in the main square. São Paulo is about an hour away and is one of the great eating cities of the world. And if you have the time, the coast and the falls are worth the extra flight.

Here is where we would send you.

A few of our favourite places, if you are making a proper trip of it.

Around Itu

  • Old town

    Centro Histórico de Itu

    Itu calls itself the "City of Exaggerations", and leans into the joke with an oversized public telephone in the main square. Colonial houses, the Candelária church, and unhurried cafés around Praça Padre Miguel.

    15 minutes from the venue

  • Nature

    Parque do Varvito

    A small geological park built around striped rock laid down by glaciers roughly 300 million years ago. Odd, quiet and genuinely unusual — an easy hour.

    20 minutes from the venue

  • History

    Museu Republicano

    The house where the 1873 Itu Convention set Brazil on the road to a republic, now a small museum run by the University of São Paulo.

    In the historic centre

  • Wine

    Roteiro do Vinho, São Roque

    A ribbon of family wineries and restaurants along the Estrada do Vinho. Come for the long lunch and the view rather than for grand cru — it is a very Paulista Sunday.

    45 minutes by car

  • Day trip

    Holambra

    A town founded by Dutch immigrants in the 1940s and still visibly so: windmills, tulip fields and Brazil’s flower capital. Faintly surreal if you have flown in from Europe.

    1 hour 15 by car

São Paulo city

  • Art

    MASP

    Lina Bo Bardi’s red concrete box floating over Avenida Paulista. Inside, the collection hangs on freestanding glass easels rather than walls — worth the trip on its own. Closed Mondays.

    Avenida Paulista

    Visit website(MASP)

  • Food

    Mercado Municipal

    The Mercadão, under stained glass. Order the mortadella sandwich or the salt cod pastel, accept that it is touristy, enjoy it anyway. Go hungry and go before 3pm.

    Centro

  • Park

    Parque Ibirapuera

    São Paulo’s central park, wrapped in Niemeyer curves. Good for a morning walk before the heat, with the Afro Brasil museum and MAM inside the grounds.

    Moema / Vila Mariana

  • Restaurant

    A Casa do Porco

    Jefferson and Janaína Rueda’s pork temple, a fixture on the world’s-best lists and still fairly priced. Book well ahead or resign yourself to the queue.

    Centro

    Visit website(A Casa do Porco)

  • Street art & bars

    Vila Madalena & Beco do Batman

    A hillside of galleries, bars and repainted walls. Beco do Batman is the famous alley; the neighbourhood around it is the actual reason to go, ideally after dark.

    Vila Madalena

  • Neighbourhood

    Liberdade

    The Japanese, Chinese and Korean quarter, and a reminder that São Paulo holds the largest Japanese community outside Japan. Best on a Sunday, when the street market runs.

    Centro

  • Architecture

    Sesc Pompeia

    An old drum factory that Lina Bo Bardi turned into a cultural centre without pretending the factory was gone. Have a coffee by the concrete fireplace and watch the city use it.

    Pompeia

Further afield

  • Colonial coast

    Paraty

    A whitewashed colonial port on the Costa Verde, with cobbles that flood at spring tide by design. Boat trips to the islands, cachaça distilleries in the hills.

    4–5 hours by car from São Paulo

  • Beaches

    Ilhabela

    An island off the north coast, reached by a short car ferry. Atlantic rainforest running straight down to the sand, and the closest good beaches to the party.

    3 hours by car, plus the ferry

  • City

    Rio de Janeiro

    If you have crossed an ocean already, the extra hour in the air is not a difficult argument. Shuttle flights leave from Congonhas all day.

    1 hour flight, or 6 hours by car

  • Waterfalls

    Foz do Iguaçu

    Two hundred and seventy-odd waterfalls on the Argentine border, and one of the few sights that survives the hype. Walk both the Brazilian and Argentine sides if you can spare two days.

    1 hour 45 flight

  • Art & gardens

    Instituto Inhotim

    Contemporary art scattered through a botanical garden in Minas Gerais, each major work in its own pavilion. Nothing else in Brazil is quite like it. Give it a full day.

    1 hour flight to Belo Horizonte, then 1 hour by car

    Visit website(Instituto Inhotim)