Inhotim

Minas Gerais guard enchantments of all the types! Here have history, culture, gastronomy and diversific fauna and flora, what were believing the only sceneries in Brazil! Have no coast, but it has beach of fresh water. Have no station of ski, but it had already up to snow in the Mantiqueira's mountain range! The tourist motivations are infinite and the offer of walks, quite interesting!

One of the unlosable places is the magnificent Centre of Contemporary Art of Inhotim, a museum-park there is 60 kms of the main city Belo Horizonte.
The museum began through the particular collection of his owner, Bernardo Paz, what finished great works of art off along the last 30 years in auctions taken place throughout the world. They are approximately 350 works of more than 80 artists, containing exhibitions of It Insists, Cildo Meireles, Adriana Varejão, Doris Salcedo, Andy Warhol, Doug Aitken, Matthew Barney, Victor Grippo, Chris Burden and Pipilotti Rist.

The representative heap of contemporary art takes works as a focus created from the 1960 years. It has paintings, sculptures, drawings, photographies, videos and installations of Brazilian and international artists. The heap is very well installed amid the most beautiful ecological park projected by the landscape painter Burle Marx. The enormous variety of plants does from Inhotim a place where there is one of the biggest botanical collections of the world, with tropical rare sorts and a forest reserve that makes part of the Atlantic Forest's bioma. Distinction for the collection of orchids, which color still more the gardens.

The place is formed by extremely inviting environments, with pleasant areas for rest or simple contemplation of the nature amid a sophisticated and modern design. Deck-chairs, flirts and green grasses suggest an analysis more deep of the works of a quite comfortable way (cheers for Domenico de Masi with his theory of the creative leisure!).

The infrastructure of the place is excellent! A charming and sophisticated restaurant, with international menu (and price also "international"), cafeterias and snack bars spread by the park, completely with great design and good taste! Other not less important details, like the bathrooms, are a part chapter: more there seem environments decorated by renowned professionals to the style brazilian CASA COR. At the reception and the souvenir store they are the best and the professional ones are very quite trained and cordial, besides answering in 4 different languages. There is still a parking with the "Disney Methodology", where the car have to park in a order of arrival, making easy for the drivers. (That is common there in his city?? Here in Minas Gerais not, therefore the approach! :)

There is still a discreet heliport, which receives visitors resulted from other states. Celebrities lands this way every week, disposed to know a little more on the interesting heap and to check the new exhibitions.

Inhotim is so like that: done for the one who can appreciate the art, be in the heap, be in the structure, be in the scenery! It is still not possible to visit it to the living creature, cape in the web: http: // http://www.inhotim.org.br/ In the real or virtual field, it is simply unlosable! One more point for the culture of Minas Gerais!

Karlovy Vary - For who wants to be a king

Karlovy Vary is one of the most famous thermal cities of the whole Europe. Hosted in the Czech Republic amid western Bohemian, to the edges of the river Tepla and 140 kms from Prague, it receives tourists of the whole world, especially the russians, who look there for the relief and the cure provided by the medicinal waters.

The region of the Bohemian, who stretches out from the frontier with the Baviera and the Saxon, is essentially a zone of bathhouses. The concentration of springs of mineral waters that here exist is unique in the world and they are exceptional for the variety of his chemical composition and consequent scale of physiologic and therapeutic effects what they have.

The thermal waters emerge to the surface for 12 springs from 2.000 to 2.500 meters of deep, and to temperatures between 41 degrees and 72 degrees centigrades. The biggest and their hottest is the spring Sprudel, with a volume of two cubic metres for minute and to a temperature in the surface of 72 degrees. There is still the fountain Vridlo, a geyser that launches water jets to 17 meters of height. The waters have effects dressings on the nervous system, blood circulation and in the glands of internal secretion and many celebrities, like the russian tsar Peter Great or famous names like the poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe proved the effects dressings of the local fountains.

Karlovy Vary, which in Czech means “Charles' boiler“, was established in 1350, by order of the King Carlos IV and it is inserted in a romantic mountainous scenery, where numerous forest ways go through the wooded slopes.

Besides the thermal waters, Karlovy Vary is known also by the fine porcelain and by the crystal Moser, one of the most famous and traditional of the world also called of “Crystal of the Kings”. Another celebrated product of the city is the liqueur Becherovka, considered the "Tenth third spring of Karlovy Vary” and when the base of herbs was prepared by the pharmacist Josef Becher in 1807, which from that time is consumed in whole world.

The architecture of the city is a beauty to the part. Stuck in the slopes that go round the valley, there are the magnificent constructions of the century XIX, which art nouveau and art mix decò in the only mixture that represents the visual identity of the place.

The Russian community has an enormous representativeness in the city, so much that all the plates also are written in russian and there are daily flights between Karlovy Vary and Moscow. Besides, there is there an exemplary perfection of the orthodox Russian church, with his golden domes standing out in the scenery. It the question is the Church of Saint Peter and Sao Paulo built in the century XIX.

The city has far-reaching events, since it is the case of the International Festival of Cinema (Mattoni), which takes place from 1949 without any interruption and also the festivals of Dvorak and of Jazz, these events that go together perfectly with the magic of the city.

The city, which for everything exposed one above, already is unlosable, becomes still more inviting as regards the tourist infrastructure. The offer of hotels is enormous and each one has his special charm. In the top of the list there are the tradicionals Pupp, Carlsbad Plaza and Savoy Westend, true stuffed palaces of sophistication and refinement ... a luxury for few ones (of which unfortunately I am not included!! lol).

The walk to the Karlovy Vary can be done in one day, but it is run. It will be possible, spend one night in the city and enjoy still more this incredible place. It will be more possible, have a great time in one of the charming hotels mentioned above and feel like a truthful Czech monarch! But remember that in the days of today, the "monarches" pay the bill to the end ... good luck! :)