Brasília travel guide

Best time to visit

The climate is mild and the humidity refreshingly low, but overpowering in the dry season (May to mid-October). The noonday sun beats hard, but summer (October to April) brings heavy rains and the air is usually cool by night. It’s best to visit in the dry season when the stark modernist buildings stand out against the deep blue sky.

Getting around

A good and cheap way of seeing Brasília is by taking bus rides from the municipal rodoviária at the centre: the destinations are clearly marked. The circular bus routes Nos 106, 108 and 131 go round the city’s perimeter. If you go around the lake by bus, you must change at the Paranoá Dam; to or from Paranoá Norte take bus No 101, ‘Rodoviária’; and to and from Sul, take bus No 100, bypassing the airport. If staying in a hotel outside the centre, it’s worth contacting them in advance to ask how to get there. A new urban railway, the metrô, runs to the southwest suburbs but is very limited.

Air

Flights arrive at the international airport (12 km south of the centre, T061-3364 9000, http://www.aeroportodebrasilia.gov.br) . Tourist information is available from Adetur (T061-3325 5730, daily 0730-2230) . Infraero (2nd floor, open 24 hrs) has information on airport buses. A taxi to the centre costs around US$15, meter rate two is used. Alternatively, take bus Nos 102 or 118 (US$1, 30 minutes) from outside the terminal building. There are left-luggage facilities at the airport (locker tokens US$1.50), banks, car rental agencies, a post office and various restaurants and shops.

Orientation

A competition for the best general plan was won by Professor Lúcio Costa, who laid out the city in the shape of a bent bow and arrow. It is also described as a bird or aeroplane in flight. The official name for central Brasília is the Plano Piloto.

The Eixo Monumental divides the city into Asa Norte and Asa Sul (north and south wings) and the Eixo Rodoviário divides it east and west. Buildings are numbered according to their relation to them. For example, 116 Sul and 116 Norte are at the extreme opposite ends of the city. The 100s and 300s lie west of the Eixo and the 200s and 400s to the east; quadras 302, 102, 202 and 402 are nearest the centre, and 316, 116, 216 and 416 mark the end of the Plano Piloto.

Residential areas are made up of large six-storey apartment blocks called ‘Super- Quadras’. Each Super-Quadra houses 3000 people and has a primary school and playgroup. Each group of four Super-Quadras should have a library, police station, club, supermarket and secondary school. All quadras are separated by feeder roads, along which are the local shops. There are also a number of schools, parks and cinemas in the spaces between the quadras (especially in Asa Sul), though not as systematically as was originally envisaged. On the outer side of the 300s and extending the length of the city is Avenida W3, and on the outer side of the 400s is Avenida L2, both of these being similarly divided into north and south according to the part of the city they are in.

Asa Norte is growing very fast, with standards of architecture and urbanization that promise to make it more attractive than Asa Sul in the near future. The main shopping areas, which have more cinemas, restaurants and other facilities, are situated on either side of the municipal bus station (rodoviária). There are now several parks and green areas. The private residential areas are west of the Super-Quadras, and on the other side of the lake.

At right angles to these residential areas is the ‘arrow’, the 8-km-long, 250-m wide Eixo Monumental. The Eixo Rodoviário (the main north–south road), in which fast-moving traffic is segregated, follows the curve of the bow, the radial road is along the line of the arrow; intersections are avoided by means of underpasses and cloverleaves. Motor and pedestrian traffic is segregated in the residential areas.