April 13 – Walking Tour of Tiradentes

We hit the breakfast room first thing this morning.  And breakfast was massive.  There was no buffet but the table (only two tables were set…must not have many guests) was already set.  We each had a plate of fruit and the table contained bread, butter and some sort of jam, and two baskets of what really looked like desserts...fruit breads and lemon bars and such.  And they brought us eggs.  We were pretty full from breakfast.

We headed out shortly after for our walking tour.  During the tour we saw horse drawn carts,

and a stream with lush vegetation.

The town is very quaint…most of the old architecture has been retained.  

The cobblestone streets have also been preserved and it is pretty wobbly walking. 

Our first stop was the Sao José Fountain.  The fountain dates to 1749 and behind the pretty façade is a water trough for farm animals on one side and a large pool on the other for doing laundry.  It was also a main drinking water supply for the people of town.

The laundry pool

About this time we picked up a couple of travel companions…two dogs that followed us for a long time.

We then headed up a lovely street…

to the Mother Church of Santo Antonio.  

There were beautiful wooden ceilings with murals,

lots of gold statues and detailing,

and a gorgeous altar. 

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Video of Mother Church
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More Mother Church of Santo Antonio
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Not far away we stopped to se the Museum of Casa Padre Toledo.  This house belonged to Padre Toledo, who was involved in a movement to gain independence for the region, Minas Gerais, from the Portuguese.  The house is now a museum.  It has a few interesting exhibits...

but the jewel of the museum was the restored ceiling murals.

And there were hexagonal mirrors on the floor of one of the rooms so you could see the murals without craning your neck. 

In one room they had done restoration work on some of the walls.  

We saw a couple of the Stations of the Cross Chapels during our walks.

Then we saw the old jail…

and visited the basement where there was a huge collection of statues of Saint Anna (mother of Jesus’ mother Mary) with Mary.  The works were from a private collection.

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More St Anne Statues
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Then we stopped at the Church of Our Lady of the Rosary of Blacks.  This small church was for the slave population.  It was small and nearly as elaborate as the other churches we've seen.  But it was still very pretty.

There were a lot of small shops everywhere.  They didn't have the large glass display windows like we see in the states...but they had charming displays at eye level in the windows of the buildings. 

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More Tiradentes
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We were done by mid-afternoon, so we decided to skip lunch and afternoon tea at the hotel.  We later headed out for dinner at a nearby restaurant.  It was packing tonight as we leave again in the morning.