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Published: March 22nd 2008
We are staying in Ouro Preto, but that’s the next blog! From there you can take a wonderful steam train ride out to nearby Mariana on the
Trem da Vale. It only operates on Friday, Saturday and Sunday so time your visit well!
The trip begins at Ouro Preto train station which has been nicely restored and also houses a small museum. As well as various artefacts, there are interactive displays (also in English!) and a model railway for the real enthusiast. It’s only to see though, not to play with! You can, however, play with a variety of musical instruments in the “environmental-acoustic car”.
The steam train, Smoky Mary, was built in the Czech Republic by Skoda but we didn’t quite catch how it ended up in Brazil. There wasn’t too much English commentary or information and our Portuguese hasn’t really developed much! It took us on a wonderful one hour journey through spectacular scenery, past waterfalls and through tunnels, all the way to Mariana.
If you take the return journey you get two hours to explore Mariana. For us that was only just enough time. The station, once again lovingly restored, houses various exhibits including the “car of
the senses” where you see an audio visual display of mines, trains and ports which was short, sweet and very good.
Walking up into the town you see instantly that there are an awful lot of churches around! There simply wasn’t time to visit any of them, but wandering around made for a good tour anyway. The streets are made of what they call peanut brittle, something we remember from English fun fairs. Here it is a cobbled street and far from easy under foot. It must be treacherous in the rain! Luckily the sun shone all the time we were there.
We walked all the way out to the Basilica. Once away from the centre we saw very few other tourists. It was worth the strenuous walk for the panoramic views over Mariana. Stopping for a snack and a fruit juice on the way back to the station, we made it just in time for our return to Ouro Preto.
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