Campinas, Brazil

Around 100km northwest of São Paulo, CAMPINAS has been in relative decline compared to its neighbour since the nineteenth century, when it was by far the more important of the two cities. It started life as a sugar-plantation centre, produced coffee from 1870 and later made its money as a hub for agricultural processing and, more recently, high-tech industry and education. An attractive city, with a reasonably compact centre, it doesn't offer many reasons for visiting, though it's interesting enough to take a tour around Largo do Rosário, with its Catedral that was inaugurated in 1883. About 13km from the city centre you'll find Unicamp , the Universidade Estadual de São Paulo. Founded in 1969 on land belonging to Colonel Zeferino Vaz, during the worst years of military terror the university became – thanks to the protection afforded by Vaz – a refuge for left-wing teachers who would otherwise have been imprisoned or forced into exile. Unicamp rapidly acquired an international reputation and today is widely considered to be Brazil's best university, though you're only likely to visit on academic business as the campus is architecturally unremarkable. With a student population of 100,000, Campinas has a reasonably lively cultural life, centred on the Centro de Convivência Cultural , at Praça Imprensa Fluminense in the centre. In addition to a theatre and art galleries, the centre is home to the fine Orquestra Sinfonia.

If you have a car, one of the most interesting places to visit near Campinas is the Fazenda Monte d'Este , 12km from town, just off the SP-340 (the road leading to Holambra). Built during the nineteenth-century coffee boom, the beautiful fazenda house is open to the public and contains a small museum outlining the development of the area's former coffee-based economy. A tour of the place, which lasts two hours, costs R$45, or R$60 including an excellent lunch (bookings essential on Tel:19/3257-1236, minimum 5 people).