Belo Horizonte – quick travel guide

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Big friendly city in inland Brazil, known for good food from Minas Gerais region, modern architecture and art.

Belo Horizonte, aka “BH” and pronounced by locals as “Beaga” [bay-ah-gah], is the capital of Minas Gerais (historically known as a place of mines…gold, etc). Although considered an important tourist destination for its historical significance and natural beauty, foreigners don’t usually come to Minas Gerais.

And generally, nobody goes here because it feels like BH doesn’t have any of Brazil’s typical nature highlights…beaches, rivers, waterfalls, jungle, etc. And the town itself doesn’t have much to offer tourists. I’d say the best tourist highlight in BH is #1 Inhotim (outdoor contemporary museum), and #2 the best carnaval in Brazil. Other than that, it’s a chill city and mostly safe city.

You could easily pop in and out of this city in 2 days and felt you saw all the highlights. But if you stayed longer, there’d be plenty of everyday niceties and nearby towns and attractions to make it worthwhile.

Where to stay:

  • Savassi – the prime area to be for foreigners or first-timers. It’s lively. The action is here. The nightlife is here. Everything.

Hostels:

  • BR Hostel – great location with great reviews. Friendly folks, staying in a mix of dorms and privates. Community spaces are friendly and cozy, nice upstairs terrace with balcony, quiet co-working space as well. Internet works reliably throughout entire hostel. Beds are solid heavy metal frame that doesn’t make too much noise or movement. Friendly helpful staff. It’s the only one I tried.
  • Nuh Hostel
  • Rota BH Hostel
  • Eden Hostel
  • Rock and Hostel

Neighborhoods & Walking areas:

  • Savassi – mainly Praça da Savassi (square). Many awesome restaurants and bars all around here.

Activities to do:

  • Markets:
    • Mercado Novo** – old rundown brick building repurposed into several floors of small boutique shops, restaurants and bars, graffiti art throughout the unused parts, and lots of young local folks running around. It’s a cool hip place to be for young people..all shops and restaurants cater to young people. Also sometimes called the The Old New Market (Velho Mercado Novo).
    • Mercado Central* – classic old-fashion marketplace with many foods, shops (souvenir & everyday items), and old fashion eateries. More of touristy place to take photos, or old local people to hang out and buy everyday household items or food. Young folks go to the Mercado Novo.
  • Buildings & architecture –
  • Parks, gardens, green spaces:
    • Parque Serra do Curral & Parque das Mangabeiras – 2 nice big parks, many hiking trails, (unswimmable) waterfalls, wildlife animals (coati, toucan, skunk, etc), and beautiful viewpoints of the city below.
    • Mirante do Mangabeiras – elevated viewpoint of the city below (in the nicest neighborhood of BH), popular for sunset time. You can picnic on the grass as many people do during the afternoon.
    • Praca do Papa – great spot to hangout among nature and other park-goers. Lots of live music, events, and just people hanging around. I’d go here after sunset time.
  • Arts & museums
    • Inhotim**
      • Considered the largest open-air musuem in the world. Big art collection placed in architectural structures spread throughout a giant park and botanical garden. Showcasing the beauty of contemporary art with nature side-by-side. Some locals say you should go here instead of other nearby towns, as this musuem is more unique. And you should go before some land damage destroys it.
      • You can get a quick idea of it in 3 hours, but you really need whole day to see everything (which you’ll want to). Arrive when it opens and buy the entry along with the golf cart pass, which helps you travel the dotted routes quickly. Then spend your day exploring the big beautiful park and botanical garden, arranged in a theme park setting with art exhibits spread throughout. Many nice cafes and restaurants with great food to take breaks. We took 5.5 hours to see everything, with very minimal breaks.
      • EASY STRATEGY: focus on reaching all the galleries (marked “G” on the map). Along the way, you’ll naturally pass all the outdoor stuff like artworks (“A”), botanical highlights (“B”), and gardens (“J”)…so you don’t actually have to plan for those. Whenever possible, take the golf cart on the dotted lines to speed you up, then as you drive past the outdoor stuff you can decide if you’d rather walk back.
      • ADVANCED STRATEGY: look up the map ahead of time to see all the exhibits, then look up those exhibits online to see if they interest you. But even still…a lot of the beauty is on the way to the exhibit. So the journey there (with gardens and artwork along the way) might still be worth it even if you don’t like the art exhibit at the end of the path.
      • Typically, people do ORANGE area, then YELLOW area, then PINK. But you could also mix up the order if you see too many people going the orange way.
  • Sunset views –
    • Mirante do Mangabeiras – nice view of sunset and the city below. Afterwards, you head down to Praca do Papa to see people hanging around here.

Restaurants & Cafes:

  • Dona Conceicao – nice buffet chain restaurant. I don’t know why some of them have horrible reviews. The one I went to at the Patio Shopping mall was super good!
  • Dona Ivone Butiquim – nice local bar in Savassi with good food. Great as a lunch option. Has outdoor seating.
  • Nashy Sushi – fancy sushi place! Pricey for Brazilians. Great sushi, great sushi. Beware, there are 3 locations (2 of them open, 1 closed). And both get super full after 18:00, so make a reservation especially if you have a big group! Sushi was good, but not comparable to highend sushi in USA, Europe, Asia.
  • Eugenheiros Sushi – poke sushi. Good sushi and better price for local Brazilians.
  • Madero – fancy steakhouse chain. Has everything from steak to pasta, etc. But known for their burgers (which are often promoted as “the best burger in Brazil”). It’s not the absolute best burger but it’s still very good and you won’t be disappointed.
  • Jeronimo – fast food chicken burger restaurant version by the same owner of Madero.
  • Da Boca – nice restaurant bar with outdoor seating. Many other similar options nearby as well.
  • O Granulado** – most beautiful cafe and candy shop. Usually packed but so pretty and worth the wait, amazing service. Everybody here is dressed up nice.
  • Patio Savassi Shopping Mall – many restaurants in the food court if you can’t decide, and just want to be somewhere with AC.
  • Mishki Mikuy* – super delicious top-grade Peruvian restaurant in BH. Fun appearance from the outside as it looks like an inconspicuous black sliding door without any other signage. Knock or slide the door open and a whole crowded restaurant is revealed inside.

Bars & Clubs:

  • Forno da Saudade** – popular local bar and pizza joint on the hill. Good beer, good pizza, and good service. This place gets crazy packed because it has a huge outdoor space where you can sit on the tables or around the concrete steps overlooking the city below. It can be fun and casual, or even romantic. Certain days (especially weekends) can be too packed that it feels like a huge Brazilian-style outdoor party.
  • Redentor Bar – go here at night to see the crowds.
  • It’s Surreal Savassi – nice big popular bar.
  • Estacao – is it a bar, a club? It seemed like club vibes sometimes when I walked by. Typical outdoor restaurant bar and busy at nights and weekends.
  • Praca da Savassi – this area would have tons of bars as well.
  • Carnaval – not a bar/club but giant street party throughout the city. Carnaval annual event is really awesome in BH. I enjoyed it here very much. It was small back around 2015 but today is one of the larger ones in Brazil. Endless blocos to choose from. If you like electronic, I hear Carnaland is great. Being a smaller city allows the blocos to be more unified, and have bigger masses of people.

Miscellaneous tips:

  • General travel tips for Brazil.
  • Centro de Treinamento BDI – great boxing local boxing gym. Good size and friendly vibe with many nice students. Group classes and privates as well. The owner and his girlfriend speak great english.
  • Pe Descalco – dance studio chain. I went to some really nice forro classes here. Helpful instructors, many of them speak good english. Very crowded and lots of friendly young folks.
  • 7&8 Escola de Danca – another dance studio teaching many styles.
  • Gyms
    • Belo Horizonte has many awesome gyms.
    • Rockclimbing – I went to the Rokaz Escalada chain. The Buritis one has a big open space for bouldering, and the Savassi one has less bouldering space but also has rope-climbing. I preferred Buritis because it was less crowded and I like bouldering more anyway.
    • Fitness gyms – you’ll notice many right around the area where Rokaz Buritis is.

Itinerary:

  • 1 DAY – daytime check out O Granulado cafe, then sunset at Forno da Saudade (for beer pizza sunset) followed by Mercado Novo. Later in the night, you can stay at Mercado Novo or head over to Praca da Savassi to scope out the nightlife.
  • 2 DAY – Mirante do Mangabeiras in afternoon and sunset, followed by Praca do Popa square nearby. Or you could do Inhotim Museum in the daytime followed by whichever sunset & evening plans you wish.
  • 3 DAY & MORE – follow the 2-DAY itinerary, and then do daytrips to Inhotim Museum or nearby towns like Ouro Preto & Tiradentes.

Nearby towns:

  • Ouro Preto** – I think most guides and most tourists will recommend this as the major highlight nearby town. Small, cute, and charmy…also close by. Can make it a day trip, spend some hours in the center, and come back. 2hr drive, many buses available.
  • Tiradentes** – all the locals say this one is the most recommended, and their personal favorite. Only thing is it’s farther than Ouro Preto. 4hr drive. Is bigger than Ouro Preto, lots more to do…you could visit Ouro Preto for some hours, then continue onwards and spend the night in Tiradentes, and come home the next day.

Unfiltered notes:

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