(Promised) Arts and Crafts of Minas Gerais – Tiradentes part 3

 
This area is know for its wood carved furniture and decorative items.
   
there are many items carved from wood then painted in bright colors.  the dolls above are made with heads from wood and skirts from paper Mache.  The motifs repeat over and over but the quality of the artwork and the pricing varies by a wide margin.  
   I  have seen these in most towns of Brasil that I have visited but I think they are actually made here.  These young ladies where made of ceramics, but there were also a few carved from wood.  It is amazing to me the variations in expressions that you see, haughty, gentle dreamer or flirty – the details front and back that create these moods are amazing.
   
    

A few weeks back The Friday Shoot out Gang’s theme was yard ornaments…. at that moment I didn’t have anything to post.  Now look at what is possible to have in your yard or on your porch!  and all in one place.  Aren’t they the best?
     
is a small town very close Tiradentes there were many very unusual things, statues made of bottle caps, kites of Paper Mache, 
bottle caps   paper Mache kites.

Traveling in Minas Gerais 2 – eating out

Camillo is Italian by birth and Brazilian by choice, so the food and the wine of anyplace we travel is of primary importance. ‘Comida Mineira’ can be found in  and around Rio but it tends to be in the most basic of restaurants, for example truck stops and small places attached to bars, and is often served buffet style. It is also what we call in the southern USA comfort food, high calorie, high carbs, and it has long lasting affects. In Tiradentes this same food is served as culinary art and you are charged accordingly. Yes Tiradentes is a tourist place, a tourist place for the more affluent Cariocas and Paulistas but their pricing is over the top for this very basic food; rice, beans, rice & beans combined, pork, couvie (collard greens), beef cooked in gravies (a sure sign of the cheapest cuts of meat) and roasted potatoes. Don’t get me wrong comfort food is well comforting and I ate every bite put in front of me, but it was way overpriced. Can’t complain about ambiance though – two of the restaurants we enjoyed were in excellent locations. Virada’s do Largo Restaurant de Beth is off the main street; is quiet and the food is good example of what comes from the local kitchens. The desert was a sampler of local sweets and cheeses.

Our second experience was at Leitão do Luiz in the villa PAOLUCCI. If you have read my blogs about food before, you know that Camillo and I have a secret formula  for saying a restaurant is priced well or is expensive. Villa Paolucci is a stunning location. It has large grounds, a house that you can browse through that is now set for large parties, even weddings, but enough remains of the original decorations to show you the elegance in which the Paolucci family lived in the past. The food was served (self service) buffet style with great pomp and circumstance, but then it was difficult to catch the eye of the waiter and the time between dinner and desert was a bit long and the coffee even longer.  The problem for us was that we were the smallest group and spent time waiting for the larger groups to be ready for desert and coffee.

Here is the problem with pricing, the meal (required to pay in advance with reservation) was R$100.00 per person plus the drinks were extra. A bottle of wine normally around R$60.00 was 100.00 and so on. If the meal had been served by the waiters, and if the service had been excellent, and if the side dishes more than rice and beans I could have dealt with about 130.00 per person that we ended up paying, but I would say that a total of 80.00 each would have been closer to reality of ambiance/food/service quotient.  If you want Leitão there are places in Rio just as good, including ambiance, for about R$60.00 per person.

more photos of the Villa Paolucci – click ‘view full album’ below

Tomorrow come again to see the art of Tiradentes.

Tiradentes - Villa Paolucci VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Traveling in Minas Gerais

 

Well we are back in Friburgo safe and sound. I decided that I would do 3 blogs about our trip to Tiradentes. There was just too much to talk about.  If I did it as one you 'all would be snoring before the 4th paragraph. So I will do one on the town itself, one about the food, ‘comida mineira,’ and one about the local art.

Hope you come back to see all the photos, Tiradentes is a wonderful place.

(Ingreja in Ouro Preto)

[if you double click the map on the side bar and move it from to the right you can see the route we drove highlighted in blue.]

 

To the north west of Friburgo (RJ) just south of Belo Horizonte is a UNESCO town of Ouro Preto (MG) (black gold) that in the 1500s was the center of mining and is a beautifully preserved Portuguese colonial town. I have been there 3 times.  The drive is over 7 hours each way; well worth the trip but a very long drive.

Now we have discovered (been shown by friends) the town of Tiradentes. From Rio it is a little more than a 4 hour drive on relatively good Federal roads. It is smaller than Ouro Preto, also well preserved, and is filled with pousadas (B&Bs), descent restaurants and makes for a great short weekend trip from Rio. The town was full of visitors from both Rio and Sao Paulo. They had come for shopping.  Tiradentes is known for its local crafts and for its handcrafted furniture. I was so sorry that both the apartment in Rio and the house in Friburgo are complete – I really had no shopping to do. I did manage to buy my daughter a Christmas present. (sorry, side tracked)

 

 

The street of our pousada was at the top of the town and was lined with flowering trees. To walk down  to the town center took about 8 minutes, stepping from stone to stone and walking on a pretty steep incline.  In other words wear good walking shoes, my ankles are still sore today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Saturday morning I walked down from our pousada before breakfast, walking the side streets; in my element taking photos without the crowds of people and the streets lined with cars. (happy, relaxed)

Next weekend they have a gastronomic festival and I can’t imagine where all the cars will be put. Like all the towns I have visited here in Brasil, large and small, there are major traffic problems. No one  wants to say, sorry you have to walk 4 blocks. They have a brigade of horse and buggies sitting amongst the cars, waiting for customers.  What if… what if these buggies picked you up at parking lots outside the city and brought you to the center….how fun would that be…?  What if…?   No one listens to me when I start in about traffic…. (sorry, side  tracked again)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As I walked around on Saturday I noticed 4 churches, three small chapels, doors even on the smallest of home were painted and decorated with a cross.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

 

 

The people were warm and friendly…. they stopped to talk to me in Portuguese… and smiled for a photo…. the gentleman in green made sure I knew what time the church service was and encouraged me to study more Portuguese….. he said that to learn English was easier than Portuguese - he knew because he took one course in English…

   

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

please take a moment to go to the photo album and see more of Tiradentes.

Tiradentes - the town VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Catching up on Brasil:

Today there will be a memorial luncheon for Luisa’s family and a few friends. Tomorrow I head back to Rio and upon arriving on Thursday we will drive to Teresôpolis and on Friday we go with friends for the weekend to visit a small town called Tiradentes (named for Joaquim José da Silva Xavier or Tiradentes the ‘tooth puller’).

But before getting to deeply into the next town and its history, I have on my list of planned blogs an experience that we had in Rio nearly 3 weeks ago – its time to play catch-up.

In July Marcos and Silvia, visiting from Houston, called and ask us to dinner BUT before dinner they wanted to go to Leblon and visit his favorite liquor store.  More specifically a Cachaça shop.   Cachaça is considered the national drink of Brasil.  

Made from fermented sugarcane water it was first made and drank by the slaves of northern and central Brasil. This first, very crude drink, has a similar taste and kick as Tennessee’s white lightening. During the mid 60s more sophisticated processes and ageing in casks made of Brazilian woods developed some pretty delicious Cachaças. There was a time when the local Italian wine makers tried to get the government to ban this drink – fearing competition for their grappas. (there is no competition, after nearly 100 years of growing vines the Brazilian wines are still not competitive internationally)   The government declined this pressure and Cachaça was on it way to the top as a mixer for Caipirinha and as a straight up after dinner drink.

 

This little shop, tucked away in a side alley off Rua Carlos Góes, offers an opportunity to taste test different Cachaças. The owners well versed in the history of Cachaça, the different fermentation processes and the types of woods used during aging made this a fun experience (not to downplay the immediate warming and mood alteration effect of small sips Cachaça on a cold rainy day in RIO).

 

 

 

 

The shop carries a good selection of moderate to very expensive Cachaças (aged 3 years in imported oak barrels) and has a hidden shelf of antique (?) bottles, some history and drink mixing books and a small amount of glasses and other accessories. We brought home** two bottles to try with some good company and a special home cooked meal.

** they do not accept Master Card – so cash or visa is needed.