Ok, so I know this trip happened
in 2008 or 2009 but it’s worth remembering (specially cause I found old pics on the computer recently). Well, this post is about Ouro Preto and Lavas Novas (a small village located in the district of Ouro Preto), both located in Minas Gerais, Brazil.
We started our journey in Belo
Horizonte (BH) and drove around 120Km to Lavras
Novas to spend a couple of days in a very romantic way. The trip takes place in the asphalt
most of the way, but as the village is really small (around 1.500 inhabitants) and
quite hidden in between the mountains, the last kilometres were driven on a dirt
road. There was a quite
weird wood bridge on the way and when you pass the car over it, you have the impression it
will fall apart due to the noise. The landscape is pretty and with many huge
rocks along the road, which makes one scared when he thinks that it might have
rolled from up there!
Road to Lavras Novas
We chose a special Inn called Palavras Novas which is decorated in a rustic style, something quite typical in
the State of Minas Gerais. As it was in the middle of the week, the Inn was
almost empty and we ended up enjoying our day in the pool by ourselves watching
the (fast) sunset. Sunsets in Brazil are quite a disappointment for Europeans,
as it takes only a few minutes until the sun sets down completely and it’s then
suddenly dark. We had then a tea offered by the Inn with all sorts of cakes,
breads and cookies. The evening was great, nice food, no noise, fresh and
pure air, no city lights could be seen out of the window, only the stars... So,
more romantic than that, forget about it! To tell you the truth, our stay at
the Inn was so delightful, and as we didn’t have much time during the next day,
we didn’t get to see much of the village or the region’s famous waterfalls. So on the next morning we left Lavras Novas and put ourselves
on the way to Ouro Preto, only 17Km away.
Ouro Preto (in English,
Black Gold) is a former colonial mining town located in the so called “Serra do
Espinhaço mountains and designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO because of its baroque architecture. It was founded at the end of the 17th century and originally
called Vila Rica ("rich
village"). It was the focal point of the gold
rush of Brazil's golden age in
the 18th century. It was also the scenario for an unsuccessful Brazilian
Independence Movement, as the country was a colony of Portugal at the time. It was the capital of Minas Gerais from
1720 until 1897, when the needs of government outgrew this town in the valley
and the state government was moved to the new, planned city of Belo Horizonte, as I mentioned on a previous
post.
There’s a big
university in Ouro Preto and for this reason, there are over 10.000 students
living there and they make life in town something else. There are several
fraternity houses called "repúblicas", each
one of them with their sets of rules, traditions, and of course, great parties during
religious holidays and Carnival.
Carnival in Ouro Preto
But now back to our trip. We
parked the car at the main Square (Praça Tiradentes) and decided to walk around it and get to see the main attractions,
which include several churches richly decorated with gold, sculptures and
paintings; the main museum (Museu da
Inconfidência); the entrance of a Gold Mine; saw a jeweller shaping the beautiful
stones; visted the old theatre, the former House of Gold rendering and
coin-making (Casa dos Contos) and the
beautiful houses of the “Rua Direita”
(street) Of course, to visit all those
places, we had to go up and down the many hills, which made Sven sweet like a
waterfall – as you can totally imagine!
Museu da Inconfidência and Praça Tiradentes (Square)
Igreja de São Francisco de Assis
In the end, we got tired of
climbing the hills to see the remaining one thousand of churches and decided to
return to BH. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading
this post! For more information about Ouro
Preto, please visit: http://ouropreto.travel/en or watch
the video:
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