petropolis

a day trip to the mountains to escape the humidity - petropolis is known as the imperial city as dom pedro' court would escape here too during rio's summer months. this was brazil's first planned city, populated with a few thousand disgruntled passing germans in the mid-1850s. and so, up in rio state's mountains, we found ourselves munching on strudel, stumbling across the timber shacks of a german-style christmas market, and admiring distinctly european architecture.

this church is the catedral são pedro de alcântara, and it houses the tombs of brazil's last emperor and his missus. we also visited the imperial dacha (we had to wear felt slippers to tour the inside. sasha enjoyed ice skating around the polished wood floors in them and an ensuing couple of near misses with priceless objects.)

more on petropolis here: http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/7/3/a-little-piece-ofgermanyintheheartofbrazil.html