São Paulo State

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Overview

Speaking of São Paulo state without using superlatives is difficult. The southern hemisphere’s largest city! Its finest museums! Its best restaurants! Its worst traffic! (Well, you can’t have everything.) São Paulo city – Sampa to locals – is Brazil's boomtown (commercially, financially, industrially and culturally), and an explosion of sophisticated travelers descending on the city’s numerous arts and epicurean offerings has ensured the sprawling city remains a must-stop for traveling urbanites.

Attractions

Must-see attractions

Parque Estadual do Alto do Ribeira

São Paulo State

This 357-sq-km state park, with its 450 cataloged caves, is known as Brazil’s Capital das Grutas (Cave Capital). The park's Núcleos de Visitação (Visitor…

Museu de Arte de São Paulo

São Paulo

Sampa’s pride, this museum possesses Latin America’s most comprehensive collection of Western art. Hovering above a concrete plaza that turns into an…

Edifício Copan

São Paulo

Copan was designed by late modernist master Oscar Niemeyer. The building, with its serpentine facade and narrow brises soleil (permanent sunshades), is…

Mosteiro São Bento

São Paulo

Among the city’s oldest and most important churches, São Bento dates to 1598, though its neo-Gothic facade dates only to the early 20th century. Step…

Farol Santander

São Paulo

For one of Sampa’s best panoramas, head to the top of this 161m-high skyscraper, Brazil’s version of the Empire State Building – completed in 1939 and…

Pina_Luz

São Paulo

This elegant neoclassical museum, formerly known as Pinacoteca do Estado but modernly rebranded 'Pina_Luz' (with the underline!) in 2017, houses an…

Museu Xingu

São Paulo

Relatively unknown and blissfully uncrowded, the unassuming Casa Amarela is part NGO handicraft shop, part two-table romantic cafe and part tiny Museu…

Mercado Municipal

São Paulo

This covered market is a belle epoque confection of stained glass and a series of vast domes. Inside, a fabulous urban market specializes in all things…

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