What to do in Porto Alegre – part one

Porto Alegre has over 1,400,000 inhabitants and it is the capital of the Rio Grande do Sul state. Argentina and Uruguay border Rio Grande do Sul, and perhaps that’s why people say that gauchos (people from this state) can speak and understand “portunhol”, a mix of Portuguese and Spanish. I encourage the Spanish speakers to use their second language skills in Porto Alegre.

I lived in Porto Alegre for about five years. I used to live in Pelotas, another little city in Rio Grande do Sul, but I moved to Porto Alegre for a job at an oil company located in Triunfo called Companhia Petroquímica do Sul (today is called Braskem). After working and not enjoying chemistry labs very much I decided to apply for Social Communication at UFRGS, which stands for Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. When visiting Porto Alegre you will see that UFRGS campuses are located in different neighborhoods (all scars of the Military Dictatorship that Brazil unfortunately experienced between 1964 and 1985 - the campuses were spread out to impede student protests and riots).

Porto Alegre and Rio Grande do Sul are great cultural centers in Brazil. One reason is because this particular Brazilian state has generations of immigrants from many parts of Europe, including Portugal, Germany, Italy, Spain and Poland. On our wedding day you may hear my mother’s family speaking German or Pomeranian, a German/Polish dialect.

There are many interesting things to do in the city, so I will publish several posts about that. I will start with culture. In my opinion, two great places to go for fine arts are the Museu de Arte do Rio Grande do Sul -MARGS (Art Museum of Rio Grande do Sul) and the Fundação Iberê Camargo (Iberê Camargo Foundation). However, there is a huge list of other options on the Tourism Secretary website. At MARGS you can encounter art works from Brazilian and foreign artists (you can find a complete list here). The second location is an art foundation and it has exclusively works of Brazilian artists, especially of Iberê Camargo, a famous gaucho artist. The new building of the foundation was recently constructed and it was designed by the Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza, one of the most important contemporary architects in the world.

Another site I would definitely recommend visiting is the Centro de Tradições Gaúchas –CTGs (Gaucho’s Traditions Center). These places show the traditional music and dance of gauchos, and they usually have delicious barbecues to enjoy while watching the shows. There are several CTGs in Porto Alegre, and I believe Bryson and I went to CTG 35 last time. It can be very pretty, but also very scary!