799 Travel Guide

The "Golden Chapel" (Capela Dourada) in Recife's São Francisco complex is a masterpiece of Brazilian Baroque, built in the early 18th century, famous for its fully gilded interior. Walls, columns, altars and ceiling are almost entirely covered in finely carved gilded wood, dazzling in candlelight and daylight—the lavish Baroque is breathtaking, the ultimate expression of colonial religious art and wealth. The complex also has a convent, cloister and a religious-art museum with saints, vessels and Portuguese blue-tile panels. Small but exquisite, the Golden Chapel is Recife's finest historic religious treasure.

The Jardín Principal is the living room of San Miguel de Allende, facing the pink-stone Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel with its layered, wedding-cake Gothic spires. The garden is full of tall ceiba and orange trees, ringed by benches, a bandstand and churros stalls — the favourite gathering place for locals and visitors alike.

The Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel is the emblem of San Miguel de Allende, standing on one side of the main square. The body of the church is 17th century, but the pink neo-Gothic spires that made it famous date from the late 19th — designed, so the story goes, by a local mason, Zeferino Gutiérrez, working from postcards of European Gothic churches and building in local pink stone, which gives the proportions and detailing their handmade quality. The pink is at its deepest in the raking light of early morning and dusk, the classic shot in town.