Vin Images
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Salvador de Bahia
23 March 2020
It is a possible to say that Brazil was an historical mistake. After Christopher Columbus arrived in the Bahamas in 1492, the Spanish felt threatened by the territorial aspirations of their imperial neighbour, Portugal, with its existing colonies in west Africa, Goa and Macau. Spain therefore sought an internationally agreed territorial division that kept Portugal […]
Chapada Diamantina
7 March 2020
Escarpments, thorn forests and rock gardens… we are a long way from the Amazon Beyond the tropical surf beaches of Bahia and coconut plantations of the north east Brazilian coast, is the dry eco-region of caatinga vegetation, best exemplified in the Chapada Diamantina National Park. Chapada Diamantina is a beautiful plateau of cliffs, escarpments and […]
Chapada dos Veadeiros
3 March 2020
Ancient plateau in the Brazilian interior Australians are proud of their ancient continent, with its red centre, weathered hills and escarpments. And rightly so – Uluru is 600 million years old and the Grampians are about 420 million years old, whereas the Grand Canyon is 70 million years old, and the Andes are a sprightly […]
Brasília
1 March 2020
Brasilia existed in the imagination of Brazilians long before it was planned or built, or even before anywhere knew where it would be. The story goes back to Brazil’s constitution of 1889 which included reference to a national capital called “Brasilia” in the interior of the country. Eighty years later, Juscelino Kubitschek was a candidate […]
Ouro Preto
28 February 2020
The Brazilian Gold Rush Inland from Rio de Janeiro is the vast state of Minas Gérais. In Portuguese, this literally means ‘General Mines’ and the mineral-rich area around Ouro Preto triggered the Brazilian Gold Rush from the 1730s. Over 800 tons of gold were mined, and it changed everything. It changed everything for Brazil, because […]
Rio de Janeiro
26 February 2020
It is said that many centuries ago, a group of French Protestants, the Huguenots, escaped persecution in France and made their way to Brazil to start a new settlement on the Atlantic coast. They named it ‘France Antarctique’ and it was located on the little-known Guanabara Bay. Twelve years’ later – in 1567 – the […]
Paraty
18 February 2020
Paraty is an historic colonial town and beauty spot on the Costa Verde (Green Coast) that stretches between Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Paraty was listed as a UNESCO world heritage site in 2019, and the position of the harbour town against dramatic mountain peaks, dressed in jungle green, provided a foretaste of Rio […]
Pantanal
11 February 2020
Largest tropical wetland in the world The Pantanal is a very large tropical wetland in the corner of Brazil that borders Paraguay and Bolivia. At nearly 200,000 square kms, it is the largest tropical wetland in the world and a magnificent destination for birdwatching, Jaguar-spotting and piranha fishing. The Pantanal consists of a dense river […]
Iguazú
8 February 2020
The geography of Iguazú Falls The Iguazú Falls are a spectacular natural phenomenon on the frontier between Argentina and Brazil. The falls are by no means the highest in the world, nor is the curtain of the Devil’s Throat the widest, but the force, intensity and extraordinary beauty of Iguazú makes it a top attraction […]
Buenos Aires
3 February 2020
Why is Buenos Aires so much like Paris? Walking through the antique cobbled streets of San Telmo, the boulevards of Palermo and the cemetery of Recoleta, the immediate impression of Buenos Aires is “this is Paris!”. A fellow traveller at our guesthouse had the best response to the belle epoque chateaux and art nouveau shopping […]
