Curitiba tourist information
Curitiba
With a population of more than one million and a half inhabitants, Paraná state's capital is considered a standard city. The innovating solutions to the urban planning, the concern about environment revealed on the parks and cycle lanes and the cultural equipments that humanize life on the city make Curitiba one of best living quality places on the country.
Curitiba was one of the preferred places of European immigrants that arrived on Brazil since the XIX century – mainly Germans, Italians, Polishes and Ukrainians. The presence of these people had a great influence on the way of city. Besides the typical accents, the cookery of the restaurants reveals the origins of its population.
The streets on the city center provide a lot of options to those who like walking through the city. On Setor Histórico (Historical Sector), buildings from the XVIII and XIX centuries are preserved with museums, cultural center, restaurants and bars, besides the craft street market at Sundays. The XV de Novembro street is a pleasant pedestrian precinct with old restored buildings, where is a diversified commerce, besides very visited coffees and cake shops.
The Curitiba's modernity is represented by real architectural monuments, as the theater Ópera de Arame, the Museu Oscar Niemeyer and the university Livre do Meio Ambiente. The city has an excellent services and communications infrastructure. On Marchs, it hosts the important Festival de Teatro.
Departing from Curitiba, it's possible to go on excellent strolls, like the train journey to Paranaguá and through the historical Estrada da Graciosa. The Parque Estadual de Vila Velha, with impressive natural sculpture, is about 90 km far from the capital.
If Curitiba had to be qualified by only one of its characteristics, the most appropriate and outstanding would be the number of parks it has. There are 26 units over the town area, which marks the city with an incredible index of green area to its population. Totalizing about 80 m² millions, there are more than 50 m² per inhabitant. There are large areas, like Passaúna and Barigui. On the city center, is the little and charming Passeio Público. And there are parks that tribute the immigrants, like Bosque João Paulo II, on the Memorial da Imigração Polonesa (Polish Immigration Memorial), the Bosque Tingüi, on the Memorial Ucraniano (Ukrainian Memorial) e o Bosque Alemão. The geometrical gardens and the greenhouse from Botanical Garden are one of the most famous symbols from Curitiba.
The Opera de Arame is one construction built with ducting iron and glass. It has a theater with capacity to 2400 people, and it's used to musical and theater performances. The Museu Oscar Niemeyer, founded in 2002, was created by the famous architect. One of wings has the format of an eye – 2 thousands square meters on a column over 21 meters high. The university Livre do Meio Ambiente, Unilivre, is on the ground of an old quarry. The single construction is made by wood and glass and has an external sidewalk in spiral format that provides access to a 25 m deep lookout.
One of the most typical places on Curitiba is the village Santa Felicidade. Place of concentration of the first Italian immigrants, it has hundreds picturesque restaurants, some able to receive thousands of people simultaneously. On shift system, there are pastries, chicken, polenta and salads with recipes based on the preparing of old settlers. On the city center and near, there are options of specialized restaurants with dishes from diverse origins – German, French, Italian, Japan, Portuguese, Polish, Ukrainian, and others. The Paraná's regional cookery, influenced by the drovers' cookery (horsemen that went on long journeys throughout Brazil conducting cattle herd), can also be found on the city.
The Estrada da Graciosa begins at BR-116 road, 40 km far from Curitiba, on a road connecting to São Paulo. Constructed by the end of XIX century to connect the plateau to the coastal plain, the accentuated curves of the narrow way crosses the mountain range and the dense vegetation of Atlantic Forest by 33 km. There are several places for resting and picnics and traces of old trails that were used by the first explorers. The same mountain range can be crossed by train, on the trip that goes from Curitiba to Paranaguá, where is the main port on the southern region of the country. The railway, also constructed on XIX century, was considered on that period a daring engineering work because of its tunnels and long viaducts that prevailed over the challenges of the relief.
The city has hotels with high category comfort and services, including the ones pertaining to international nets. Curitiba has modern communication and transportation structure, besides diversified and dynamic commerce. It offers modern support to events and congress carrying out.
Curitiba is 400 km far from São Paulo, 300 km far from Florianópolis and 1400 km far from Brasilia. The modern airport Afonso Pena receives flights from all regions on the country. There are modern roads from São Paulo, to the north, and from Florianópolis, to the south.
Curitiba aerial map
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