Belo Horizonte is Brazil's third-largest city and the capital of the state of Minas Gerais. With its orderly grid plan and tree-lined avenues, it's a pleasant metropolis. For travelers, it's a good stopping point on the way to the beautiful colonial towns such as Ouro Preto.

Understand

Belo Horizonte (or simpy "BH" (beh-ah-GAH) to locals) is little over a century old. With a metropolitan population reaching more than 4 million (edging out Salvador), it was built as a planned city to take the place of Ouro Preto as the State's capital. Its layout features square sections drawn out by broad avenues, intersected diagonally by smaller streets.

The city lies in the center of the Minas Gerais state, and is intended to bring together the many parts of this very diverse state.

Belo Horizonte's location, relatively close to Rio and São Paulo, helped turn it into a major industrial center.

• Belotur - Belo Horizonte's tourist authority

Get in

By bus

BH is a major national hub for bus travel. The rodoviária is at the northern end of town at the end of Av. Afonso Pena. Approximate travel times from other capitals:

• Brasília - 10 hours
• Rio de Janeiro - 7 hours
• São Paulo - 8 hours

By plane

BH is served by two airports:

• Confins (Aeroporto Internacional Tancredo Neves) - Rodovia MG 010 S/N, 40 km - Confins/MG. Phone: (31) 3689-2700. Receives a few international flights and most domestic flights. It's located about 40 km from the city center. It is connected to the downtown area by Conexão Aeroporto express buses (R$ 12) and taxis.
• Pampulha (Aeroporto Carlos Drummond de Andrade). For some domestic flights, especially within the state of Minas Gerais. 9km from the city center.

Get around

On foot

If you plan to get around the city center on foot, you might want to take a map. Because the city grid is layed out with both ordinals and diagonal streets, it is very easy to take a wrong turn.

By bus

BH is well served by buses. The SC buses circulate through the old city; others serve outlying neighborhoods.

If you are outside the center, take a blue bus to the center. As there is no bus map, remember its number to find your way back.

By train

The Metrô snakes through the city, from Eldorado northeast to Vilarinho, tangeant to the north side of downtown. Lagoinha station is near the rodoviária (bus station).

By taxi

The main taxi companies in Belo Horizonte include Hutaxi, Jo Taxi, Intertaxi, Pitangui and Protaxi.

See

• Pampulha - This 1940's neighborhood has some of the highlights of Brazil modern archicture, including the São Francisco de Assis Church. The building is not shocking by itself, until you realize it was meant to be a church. Not surprisingly, the Catholic Church refused to consecrate it for more than one decade. Next to the church, there's the Parque Guanabara, an amusement park that is small, but worth visiting. In Pampulha lies the world-famous Iate Tenis Clube, founded along with the Pampulha Architectural Complex designed by Oscar Niemeyer. Invitations to the club can be bought at the place (they are free if you know someone affiliated to the club).
• Praça da Liberdade - A beautiful palm tree-lined square, sidelined by interesting buildings from the 19th century, including the seat of the State Government, and a curvaceous (yes, you can use this word to describe an Oscar Niemeyer building) edifice from the 60s.
• Museum of Arts and Crafts - Praça Rui Barbosa, Centro. (31) 3248-8600 (info@mao.org.br). Tu, Thu, Fri noon to 7pm. We, noon to 9pm. Sa, Su, 11am to 5 pm. Groups: Daily, from 9am-noon. The Museu de Artes e Ofícios is installed in the 19th Century buildings of the former Central Train Station. Its collection shows the richness of Brazilian popular work and professions before the country's industrialization. Admission: R$ 4. Saturday - free.
• Alta Vila Tower - Located in the district of Nova Lima,(Belo Horizonte city Metro area), this tower offers a spetacular view of Belo Horizonte and its surrounding mountains; it has a restaurant in it, as the Hard Rock Cafe, the second at Brazil, the other branch is placed at Rio de Janeiro. Also a bungee jumping place and it's located in a shopping center.
• Parque Municipal -
  

  

  Greenery in Parque Municipal
  An oasis of green right in the centre of downtown. Based on french parks, it has small lagoons were you can rent a boat or feed the ducks. It has the Casa Maluca (Crazy House), the Casa dos Pneus and a small amusement park - three places where children always like to play.
• Museu de Ciencias Naturais - Take the Metro to the Gameleira station, go NW to the PUC campus, and turn right. Diverse mollusks, whales, and Brazilian forest animals. A new exhibit is under construction. Admission: R$ 3.

Learn

• Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais. Av. Antônio Carlos 6627, Pampulhas. http://www.ufmg.br/
• Pontifícia Universidade Católica. Four blocks northwest of the Gameleira station. http://www.pucminas.br/

Eat

For a good sample of traditional mineiro food, try one the two Dona Lucinha restaurants in town. There is one near the Liberdade Square:

• Dona Lucinha II - Rua Sergipe, 811 - (31) 3261-5930 (dl2@uol.com.br). Mo-Fri 12-3pm and 8pm-midnight. Sat 12-5pm and 8pm-midnight. Sun 12-5pm. R$ 19-27.

If your food tastes lean toward brown rice and tofu, try Bem Natural. This is both a snack bar with tuna and chicken sandwiches on whole wheat, and a por quilo buffet with stuffed tomatoes, vegetarian feijoada, and brown rice. There are four locations in BH:

• Av. Afonso Pena 941, Centro - (31) 3224-1385
• Augusto de Lima 1652, Barro Preto - (31) 3295-2325
• Bernardo Guimarães 166, Funcionários - (31) 3284-6680
• Tomé de Souza 947, Savassi - (31) 3261-5676, open weekends and holidays too

Drink

• People from BH are famous for their love of bars. The central Savassi neighborhood, also known as Funcionarios (Sergipe, Antônio de Albuquerque and Pernambuco streets) has dozens of bars.Also,at São Lucas neighborhood, at Contorno Avenue, you will find "Sociedad Pub", the best Pub in town (Contorno Av.,n.3849).Actually, the city is widely known (although without any confirmation) as the city with most bars per capita in the world.

• You may know it only as an ingredient in vitamin pills, but here you can get fresh acerola puree in orange juice squeezed before your eyes. This is called a vitamina with good reason. The fruit is perishable and is stored on ice. Other fruits prepared the same way are abacaxi (pineapple), açaí, banana, and mamão (papaya).

Sleep

Major high-rise hotels are generally on Av. Afonso Pena, while mid-range and budget accommodations are clustered around the train station.

Budget

• Albergue da Juventude Chalé Mineiro - Rua Santa Luzia, 288 - Santa Efigênia (From Rodoviaria take bus 9801 (Saudade-Santa Cruz), at Rua dos Caetés, or the subway to the Santa Tereza station). (31) 3467-1576 (chalemineiro@ig.com.br) [1]. This hostel is a member of Hostelling International and has a nice swimming pool for its guests. Prices from R$ 15.

Mid-range

• Le Flamboyant - Rua Rio Grande do Norte, 1007. Phone (31) 3261-5233 (fax (31) 3261-7370)[2]. Good value for money. The 80s décor may be a little out of date, but the flats are spacious and there is a swimming pool for guests. Besides, location is excellent: right in the middle of the lively Savassi neighborhood. Singles/doubles R$ 100-120.

Buy

• Minas Shopping. Take the Metro and get off at the Minas Shopping station. Large mall with food court and cinema.
• Centro Shopping. Rua Rio de Janeiro near Praça Sete de Setembro. A variety of shops are on this pedestrian section of road.
• BH Shopping. One of BH's oldest and biggest shopping centers, with shops, food, cinema and games.
• Shopping Del Rey. Another of BH's oldest and biggest shopping centers, with shops, food, cinema and games.
• Diamond Mall. A very refined (and usually expensive) shopping center.
• Mercado Central. Av. Augusto de Lima and R. Curitiba. Tofu, whole grains, cheese, meat, herbs, religious articles, fruit, live birds, pots, and lots of other stuff.

Stay healthy

Avoid mosquito bites - for example by using a DEET-based repellent. Preventing mosquito bites is the only way to avoid dengue fever, which does occur in this area.

Drink the acerola. You won't miss your vitamin pills.

Stay safe

When crossing the street, watch for motorcycles, which can appear out of nowhere and sometimes ignore stop signs. At some intersections with divided streets, you can cross only one side at once.

Minas has both a military police (not linked to the Brazilian Army) and a civilian police. The military police is the one responsible for security in the streets, so you can address to any officer in vision when facing distress (Note, though, that most officers have a knowledge of basic english only). The uniform of the Minas Gerais state military police is brown.

The emergency number (by which you can reach the military police) is 190.

Contact

By net

• MP Games, Rua dos Inconfidentes 868, between Pernambuco and Paraíba, Savassi. You can bring your laptop. 3 R$/h.

By phone

The area code for Belo Horizonte is 31. The code for Telemar, the phone company that runs most of the phone booths in the city, is also 31. So to call Belo from outside using Telemar, you dial 031 31 and the wished number. An Ex. from Sao Paulo to Belo, dial 03131 xxxx-xxxx. But to make a local call, you don't have to dial 31 at all, just the eight digits. Some times, it depends, because there´s lot of other cities surrounding Belo, to the same area code, so you might be dial the long distance code, as 31. Dialing from or to Ouro Preto, to or from Belo, you need to dial 03131 xxxx-xxxx. There´s other long distance companies codes availables, which can be used to make those from or to calls, as Embratel (21), Intelig (23), wich does long distance callings with suitable fares, from or to Brazil and to other countries.

Get out

Belo Horizonte is an entryway to many of the the country's most important colonial towns:

• Congonhas
• Diamantina
• Ouro Preto
• São João del Rey
• Tiradentes