Museum sights in Brazil
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Museu do Seringal Vila Paraíso
The Museu do Seringal Vila Paraíso is a 25-minute boat ride from Ponta Negra, which is itself a 20-minute bus ride from the center. Fortunately, the trip there is part of the fun, and can be combined with a stop at Praia da Lua, Manaus's best beach. Guided tours include an opulent rubber baron's townhouse and a replica rubber tapper shack, and walking a short trail to see how rubber trees are tapped, and the latex processed in a thatch smoke house.
A bit gimmicky but still interesting, and the only place in Manaus to learn about this all-important history. Boats to the museum (25 minutes) leave frequently from Marina Davi, just past Ponta Negra. Take Bus 011, 012, or 120…
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Museu Histórico Nacional
Housed in the colonial arsenal, which dates from 1764, the impressive Museu Histórico Nacional contains over 250,000 historic relics relating to the history of Brazil from its founding to its early days as a republic. The museum is located near Praça Marechal Âncora and features many well-designed displays, from gilded imperial coaches and the throne of Dom Pedro II to massive oil paintings depicting the horrific combat in the war with Paraguay. There’s some attention paid to Brazil’s indigenous population and to curious relics such as the writing quill that Princess Isabel used to sign the document abolishing slavery in Brazil and a full-sized model of a colonial pharma…
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Museu Nacional de Belas Artes
Rio’s Museu Nacional de Belas Artes houses more than 18,000 original paintings and sculptures, some of which date back to works brought over from Portugal by Dom João VI in 1808. One of its most important galleries is the Galeria de Arte Brasileira, with 20th-century classics such as Cândido Portinari’s Café. Other galleries display Brazilian folk art, African art and furniture, as well as contemporary exhibits. Guided tours are available in English (call ahead).
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Pinacoteca do Estado
This elegant neoclassical Pinacoteca do Estado museum houses an excellent collection of Brazilian - and especially Paulista - art from the 19th century to present, including works by big names such as Portinari and Di Cavalcanti. Extensive renovations have made it a pleasant place to while away a rainy afternoon, and there is an attractive café that spills out into the adjacent Parque da Luz.
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Museu Théo Brandão
The Museu Théo Brandão is housed in a handsomely renovated colonial building on the seafront. Excellent exhibits cover the state’s history and popular culture; the most impressive displays are festival headpieces modeled after churches, which are loaded with mirrors, beads and multicolored ribbons and weigh up to 35kg. Traditional dance performances are staged some evenings.
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Museu da Língua Portuguesa
Half of Estação da Luz has been given over to this recently inaugurated Museu da Língua Portuguesa museum, with fascinating permanent exhibits documenting the rise of the Brazilian language as distinct from European Portuguese, as well as creative temporary installations celebrating Brazilian literature. Note, though, that all accompanying signs are in Portuguese only.
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Instituto Moreira Salles
The beautiful Instituto Moreira Salles, next to the Parque da Cidade, contains an archive of more than 80,000 photographs, many portraying the old streets of Rio. The gardens, complete with artificial lake and flowing river, were designed by Brazilian landscape architect Burle Marx. There’s also a craft shop and a café serving lunch and afternoon tea.
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Memorial JK
The tomb of JK (President Juscelino Kubitschek) lies underneath eerily beautiful stained glass by French artist Marianne Peretti inside the Memorial JK. The museum houses JK’s 3000-book-strong personal library as well as a pictorial history of Brasília. Don’t miss his 1973 Ford Galaxie just outside the back door.
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Instituto Ricardo Brennand
From Tuesday to Friday afternoons, you can visit the scenic Instituto Ricardo Brennand, Oficina Cerâmica Francisco Brennand's cousin’s museum. This contains a massive collection of European and Brazilian art, swords, armor and historical artifacts in a fake medieval castle on lovely grounds.
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Museu Histórico Abílio Barreto
The free Museu Histórico Abílio Barreto, southwest of Savassi, features a renovated colonial farmhouse, the solitary remnant of Curral del Rey, the rural village destroyed in the 1890s to make room for Belo. There are some fascinating historical photos and other bric-a-brac.
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Palácio Tiradentes
In the looming building overlooking the bay, the stately Tiradentes Palace today houses the seat of the legislative assembly. Exhibits on the 1st and 2nd floors relate the events that took place there between 1926 and the present. One of its darkest hours was when the National Assembly was shut down in 1937 under the Vargas dictatorship; it later served as his Department of Press and Propaganda. Most information is in Portuguese, though you can listen to a rundown of history in English at the interactive machine in the foyer. The statue in front, incidentally, is not a likeness of Russian mystic Rasputin, but rather that of martyr Tiradentes, who led the drive toward Braz…
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Museu Histórico Municipal
‘Have animal, will stuff’ seems to be the motto at Guajará-Mirim’s Museu Histórico Municipal. Monkeys, falcons and anteaters are among the slew of birds and mammals stuffed (none too recently, it seems) and posed in a tree in the museum’s foyer. Inside the main room, a stuffed anaconda is stretched the length of the main salon, while another is wrapped around a crocodile, also stuffed. A few other oddities, like conjoined-twin piglets preserved in formaldehyde, complete the bizarre natural history collection. The museum is housed in the old Madeira-Mamoré train station, and has some mildly interesting train memorabilia, and there are two genuine steam locomotives …
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Praça dos Trés Poderes
Down in the cockpit, you'll find the most interesting buildings surrounding the Praça dos Trés Poderes. It's a synthesis of the ideas of architects Niemeyer and Costa, combining various monuments, museums and federal buildings. The space includes striking sculptures including Bruno Giorgi's Os Candangos, Alfredo Ceschiatti's A Justiça and Niemeyer's O Pombal.
If you're lucky enough to visit on the first Sunday of the month, the military pulls out all stops for the ceremonial changing of Brasília's tallest and largest flag, a 286-sq-m banner on a flagpole conceived by Sergio Bernardes, the only edifice in the square not designed by Niemeyer.
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Museu Afro-Brasileiro
Not surprisingly given its name, the Museu Afro-Brasileiro exhibits wood carvings, baskets, pottery and other art and crafts linking Brazilian and African artistic traditions. The exhibit of photography, sacred objects and ceremonial apparel demonstrating the African roots of Brazilian Candomblé is especially fascinating.
The highlight of the museum is a large room dedicated to breathtaking carved wooden panels by Argentine-born Carybé - perhaps Salvador's most renowned 20th-century fine artist. The panels are stylised depictions of orixás (deities of the Afro-Brazilian religions), inlaid with shells and metals.
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Museu do Bonde
The tiny one-room Tram Museum at the depot close to Largo do Guimarães offers a history of Rio’s tramways since 1865 – when the trams were pulled by donkeys. A few photographs, trip-recorders and conductor uniforms are just about the only objects documenting their legacy. Uplifting music plays overhead. The term bonde, incidentally, means just that: bond, indicating the way in which the first electric trams were financed – through public bonds. While you’re at the museum, wander down to the old workshop that houses the trams. Cineastes may remember the depot from the opening sequence of the film Orfeu Negro.
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Museu de Arte Sacra
The best of its kind in Brazil, the Museu de Arte Sacra includes works by renowned 18th-century sculptor Antônio Aleijadinho, along with some 2000 other ecclesiastical works from the 17th to 20th centuries. The museum is housed in the 18th-century Luz monastery, which is one of São Paulo's best-preserved buildings of the period and also a fine example of Portuguese colonial architecture.
The best of its kind in Brazil, this museum includes works by renowned 18th-century sculptor Aleijadinho along with some 2,000 other ecclesiastical works spanning the period from the 17th to 20th centuries.
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Museu de Arte Moderna
At the north end of Parque do Flamengo, the Museu de Arte Moderna is immediately recognizable by the striking postmodern edifice designed by Alfonso Eduardo Reidy. The landscaping by Burle Marx is no less impressive. After a devastating fire in 1978 that consumed 90% of its collection, the museum is finally back on its feet and now houses 11,000 permanent works, including pieces by Brazilian artists Bruno Giorgi, Emiliano Di Cavalcanti and Maria Martins. You’ll find excellent photography and design exhibits, and the cinema hosts regular film festivals throughout the year.
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Museu de Santarém
Housed in a large yellow waterfront mansion, the Museu de Santarém is also known as the Centro Cultural João Fona, after the Pará artist who painted the frescoes on its interior walls. The building dates from 1867 and has been a jail, city hall and courthouse. In addition to several paintings and documents related to the city’s founding, the museum features a small but excellent collection of stone pieces and pottery, including burial urns and ceremonial figurines, from the Tapajoara culture that flourished locally more than 6000 years ago.
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Museu Histórico do Exército e Forte de Copacabana
Built in 1914, on the promontory of the former Our Lady of Copacabana chapel, the Forte de Copacabana (Copacabana Fort) was one of Rio’s premier defenses against attack. You can still see its original features, including walls up to 12m thick, defended by Krupp cannons. The several floors of exhibits in the fort’s museum, tracing the early days of the Portuguese colony to the mid-19th century, aren’t the most tastefully presented, but the view alone warrants a visit. There’s a lovely café overlooking Copacabana.
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Museu da Boa Morte
For a small donation, members of the exclusively female Boa Morte (Good Death) religious society will lead you around their barren one-room Museu da Boa Morte. There are some good photos here and usually society members sit around in their whites, smoking pipes and trading gossip. The society began as a sisterhood of slaves that assured dead slaves a proper burial and bought old slaves their freedom, while on the side they passed on information regarding slave uprisings and carefully disguised Candomblé events.
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Museu de Arte Sacra
The Museu de Arte Sacra consists of the impressive Igreja do Santo Alexandre and the adjoining Palâcio Episcopal (Bishop’s Palace). Santo Alexandre was Belém’s first church, founded by Jesuits in the early 17th century. Impressive in size alone, the church nave also contains brilliant sculpture and detailing, virtually all done by indentured índios using plaster and local red cedar. The rambling Bishop’s Palace has a decent collection of modern art and installation pieces, plus a café and gift shop.
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Museu da Borracha
Housed in a beautifully restored mansion, the Museu da Borracha has three small rooms with exhibits on the history of rubber-tapping. One room explains the extraction and processing of rubber, including the transition from using small axes (which killed the tree) to a tool called a cabrita (little goat), which only scrapes the surface. Other displays cover migration into Acre, the life and work of Chico Mendes and the Rural Workers Union, and relations with indigenous communities.
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Museu do Xapuri
This modest but interesting museum covers the history of Acre and Xapuri, which was once a major hub for commercial activity, thanks to its location at the confluence of two rivers. Rubber, nuts, wood and other products were floated downstream to market, while roaming merchants (mostly Lebanese and Syrian, interestingly enough) used the waterways to peddle everything from shovels to perfume. Housed in an attractive mansion that served as the city hall from 1929 to 2000.
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Espaço Cultural da Marinha
On the waterfront, the Espaço Cultural da Marinha is a sailor’s delight. Moored along the dock are the Riachuelo submarine and the Bauru (a small WWII destroyer), which have been turned into floating museums. You’ll also find a 19th-century vessel used by Dom João VI, countless ship models, and maps and navigational instruments charting the history of imperial and Brazilian navigation. The boat tour to Ilha Fiscal leaves from here.
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Museu de Ciências Naturais da Amazônia
Known by many locals as the Museu Japonesa (Japanese Museum), because it is run by Japanese-Brazilians and located in a predominately Japanese-Brazilian area, this museum has an extensive exhibit of stuffed fish, preserved butterflies and some unnervingly large beetles and spiders from the region, with descriptions in English, Portuguese and Japanese. A modest aquarium contains live Amazon fish, including the impressive 2m-long pirarucú.
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