Southeast

Minas Gerais

Colonial towns, cheese and rich cuisine

Minas Gerais is Brazil's second most populous state and a treasure chest of colonial history, baroque art and distinctive cuisine. The state gave Brazil the pão de queijo, cachaça, and the incomparable feijão tropeiro, and its historic towns — Ouro Preto, Tiradentes, Diamantina — rank among the finest preserved colonial cities in the Americas, many of them UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Capital

Belo Horizonte

Region

Southeast

Estado

Top Highlights

1Ouro Preto — perfectly preserved 18th-century gold-rush city and UNESCO World Heritage Site
2Inhotim — world's largest open-air contemporary art museum in a tropical botanical garden
3Tiradentes — intimate colonial town with outstanding mineiro cuisine and baroque architecture
4Serra do Cipó — waterfalls, cerrado trails and cave systems close to Belo Horizonte

Best Time to Visit

April to September for comfortable mountain temperatures and dry roads to historic towns.

Traveller's Tip

Minas Gerais is enormous — plan it as separate sub-trips: the historic quadrilateral (Ouro Preto, Mariana, Tiradentes), the Doce Valley, and Belo Horizonte itself.

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