A day in Santos, Brazil

Howdy from somewhere in the Atlantic ocean between Santos and Rio de Janeiro! I misspoke yesterday thinking we would be in Sao Paulo today but actually we were in port in Santos. Here was my view when I pulled back the curtains this morning.

 

coming into port, Day 47

After breakfast, we took the complimentary shuttle from the port into the city where we were dropped off at a large, modern shopping mall. We decided we didn’t care about that so we, along with 2 other couples, decided to take a trolley ride around the old part of the city. We squeezed into two cabs for a ride to the Pele Museum in order to purchase tickets for the trolley which was just across the street. 

 

Pele Museum - Santos, Brazil

greatest footballer ever

 

get trolley tickets here

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The majority of the street photos I took today were taken from the trolley ride with my cell phone (actually all photos taken with my phone). The streets were cobblestone and the once beautiful buildings were in various stages of dilapidation and covered with graffiti. Some of the graffiti actually was an improvement over the actual building. The second stories of some buildings were little more than a facade with open windows and plants growing out from them in various places. Below are some random shots as we rode through the historic district in an open air trolley.

ready to roll

friendly policia

graffiti on almost every building

Baron of Rio Branco Square

Even Mona Lisa loves Pele!

houses appear stacked

lots of scooters

perpendicular parking

 

Most all of what was said by our guide during our ride around the old town was spoken in Portuguese so we actually learned very little about what we were seeing. After our trolley ride, we decided to walk the two or three blocks back to the Coffee Museum. The sidewalk was some type of laid stone and wasn't a problem for the wheelchair but the cobblestone streets presented a bigger challenge, as you might imagine. However, our friends Lynn and Butch seem to be undaunted by challenges. Lynn was a lieutenant colonel in the US army. They are adventurers for sure and to date they have visited close to 100 countries!

 

friends Lynn and Butch

 

blue and white tiled house, 1865

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We passed this on foot while walking to the museum and I was able to read the sign out front. It said: Built in 1865, as a residence and warehouse, the construction has a neo-classical facade decorated with more than 7,000 tiles in high relief. The main door gave carriages access to the inner courtyard and the u-shaped building opened on to the port, which facilitated the loading and unloading of merchandise.

graffiti art

"see through" second story

Ronnie, Spock and the vulcan "salute"

greenery growing out of building

After our trolley ride, we walked to the Museu do Café (Coffee Museum) which was only a few blocks away. The husband of the couple we were with is in a wheelchair since a stroke about 18 months ago but that doesn’t slow them down very much. They are a very interesting couple, having been childhood sweethearts and marrying as soon as they graduated from high school (they are probably close to us in age). Pushing a wheelchair on cobblestone streets? No problem!

 

green dome - straight ahead

 

The Coffee Museum building was beautiful and interesting but without AC. The museum took visitors through the process of planting, picking, sorting and roasting the coffee beans. The museum is housed in what used to be the Coffee Stock Exchange, where coffee was weighed and traded before being sent overseas.

 

views from second floor - Museu do Café

brokers seats

second floor displays

brew taste testers

scales to weigh coffee

brokers in Auction Hall - 1920's

The Coffee Stock Exchange closed in the 1960s but the building was restored and re-opened in 2005 as a museum.