White façades
Blue windows.
The architectural ensemble of Rio de Contas, in the southern Chapada Diamantina in Bahia and the oldest town in the Chapada, takes in squares and streets lined with adobe houses, baroque churches and stone public monuments, 287 buildings in all, listed by the national heritage service in 1980. The town began as a gold-mining centre and became a regional capital, and was part of the route of the Estrada Real, the Royal Road laid out in the early eighteenth century to carry gold to the capital and on to Europe. Its buildings went up between the second half of the eighteenth century and the early nineteenth. Its houses recall those of Paraty, with white façades and blue doors and windows, and around the town lie remains of dams, tunnels, aqueducts and galleries from the mining era. It suits a quiet walk, and combines well with the Fraga waterfall and the hiking routes towards the nearby Pico das Almas.
Blue windows.
Gold history.
Dams and tunnels.
Central Rio de Contas, southern Chapada Diamantina, Bahia
Its white façades with blue doors and windows follow the same colonial style.