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Like America, Brazil has numerous great cities: Recife, Brasilia, Belo Horizonte, Belem, Porto Alegre, Manaus, and Salvador to name a few.. Sao Paulo and Rio are the New York and Los Angeles have this Portuguese -speaking nation and are among some of my favorite cities.
That aside, Rio is a much better tourist destination and will only increase in prominence. It and Sao Paulo have a good competition going in my opinion. Unlike NYC and LA, they are practically right next to each other and are developing into quite a formidable megaregion.
Sao Paulo is much larger and is a far greater business center than Rio de Janeiro, its not really that much of a competition.
However Rio de Janeiro is in my opinion, the most physically beautiful major city in the world and has incredible culture(as does SP).
Which of these cities are better tourist destinations?
No brainer: Rio. I was actually somewhat disappointed by SP. I am a big city guy, but I still like to see some charm, history and interesting architecture. SP had precious little of that.
Of the 4 major cities of Latin America -- MC, BA, Rio and SP -- SP is easily the least interesting as a tourist destination. There is nothing like Condesa or Palermo in SP... at least none that I could see. It's just block after block of highrise, fenced-in apt buildings. Not very conducive to a great vibe.
Quote:
Originally Posted by scrantiX
Will Rio be more known than Sao Paulo because of the Olympics in 2016?
It already is more known.
Quote:
Originally Posted by scrantiX
If you had to live in one of these cities which one would you pick and why would you pick it?
All else being equal, Rio of course. Again, no brainer.
I've never been to Brazil, let alone that continent but would hope to make it there soon. That said, Anthony Bourdain, whom I love, describes, "Sao Paulo feels like L.A. threw up on New York."
No brainer: Rio. I was actually somewhat disappointed by SP. I am a big city guy, but I still like to see some charm, history and interesting architecture. SP had precious little of that.
From an "interesting architecture" perspective, you definitely missed a lot of São Paulo. A huge amount of Centro (where I live) has tons of beautiful buildings...but unfortunately they're pretty run down...but the city as a whole has tons, tons, tons of beautiful architecture, and charming neighborhoods...
However since São Paulo is so damn big, it's pretty easy for it to get lost in the shuffle.
I've never been to Brazil, let alone that continent but would hope to make it there soon. That said, Anthony Bourdain, whom I love, describes, "Sao Paulo feels like L.A. threw up on New York."
The funny thing is people describe São Paulo as "sprawling", but really the city doesn't go much further than 800 square miles. However that 800 square miles has just over 17,000,000 people. The total metro is something like 3,000 square miles and 21 million people, but once you leave the city, you know it.
This is one of the biggest differences I've noticed between US cities and my experience here in São Paulo. When you're in a US city it goes: center city, inner suburbs, middle suburbs, exurbs. The experience with São Paulo is much cooler when you're coming into the city (especially if you're coming from the West)...because you're driving in a nearly-unspoiled, beautiful countryside...and then you notice a couple of small little towns or whatever...but then there's one hill going through Morumbi, leading up to Marginal Pinheiros, and when you go over that hill, all of a sudden it's like: "holy *****, there's 20 million people!". It's pretty cool.
No brainer: Rio. I was actually somewhat disappointed by SP. I am a big city guy, but I still like to see some charm, history and interesting architecture. SP had precious little of that.
Of the 4 major cities of Latin America -- MC, BA, Rio and SP -- SP is easily the least interesting as a tourist destination. There is nothing like Condesa or Palermo in SP... at least none that I could see. It's just block after block of highrise, fenced-in apt buildings. Not very conducive to a great vibe.
It already is more known.
All else being equal, Rio of course. Again, no brainer.
This area looks like it has quite a bit of character:
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