Tiradentes is a town of about 7,000 people in the hills of Minas Gerais, and it is named after a dentist who was quartered. JOAQUIM JOSE DA SILVA XAVIER, known as TIRADENTES, the tooth-puller, was the only member of the 1789 Inconfidencia Mineira independence conspiracy to be executed: hanged in Rio in 1792, then drawn and quartered, with the parts of his body displayed along the road back into Minas as a warning. He became a national hero, the republic renamed this town after him in 1889, and the warning is now the brand.
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What Is Here
THE MATRIZ DE SANTO ANTONIO IS ONE OF THE RICHEST CHURCH INTERIORS IN BRAZIL. From the outside it is a plain whitewashed box on a slope with a stone portal. Inside, the whole chancel is carved and gilded in gold leaf over cedar, paid for by the gold that came out of these hills in the eighteenth century, and the facade is attributed to ALEIJADINHO, the mixed-race sculptor who shaped Minas baroque while progressively disabled by illness. There is also a working 1798 pipe organ brought from Portugal. It is the single best thing here.
THE MARIA FUMACA IS A STEAM TRAIN THAT STILL DOES A JOB. A metre-gauge line of 1881 runs about 13 kilometres from Tiradentes to SAO JOAO DEL REI, the larger town next door, pulled by nineteenth century locomotives on a schedule rather than as an excursion curiosity. It crosses the Rio das Mortes, takes about half an hour, and the roundhouse at the far end is a working museum. Check the days before you plan around it: it does not run daily.
THE SECOND IMAGE IS THE PONTE DE PEDRA AND IT IS THE ONE FRAME IN THIS LIBRARY THAT IS NOT A STREET. Said plainly, because it explains the shape of this post: almost every photograph of Tiradentes in existence is the same colonial streetscape from a different angle, which is honest, because that is what the town is. The stone bridge over the river below the town is the exception.
THE THIRD IMAGE IS THE ROOFLINE AND THE MOUNTAIN BEHIND IT. The SERRA DE SAO JOSE rises straight out of the back of the town, and the walk up to the Mirante or along the old Caminho do Mangue gets you above the tiles in under an hour. It is also the reason the light here is good in the late afternoon.
AND THE TOWN IS NOW A FOOD DESTINATION, WHICH IS GENUINELY WHY MANY BRAZILIANS COME. Tiradentes has an unusual concentration of serious restaurants for its size and hosts a large gastronomy festival in late August, and Minas cooking, which is pork, beans, cheese, cachaca and slow pots, is the country's most loved regional food. Book a table in high season.
When to Go
April to September is the dry season and the best window, with clear days, cool nights and the hills green rather than parched.
October to March is the wet season, with heavy afternoon rain, and the cobbles at their most treacherous.
BE WARNED ABOUT THE COLD, WHICH IS THE COMMONEST PACKING ERROR HERE. At around 900 metres the winter nights from June to August drop into single figures and occasionally near freezing, in a country most visitors have mentally filed as hot, and colonial buildings here have no heating at all.
Carnival, Holy Week and the August food festival fill the town completely at the highest prices of the year.
Getting There
There is no airport. Belo Horizonte is about three hours by road, Rio de Janeiro around five and Sao Paulo six, with coaches running from all three to Sao Joao del Rei and on to Tiradentes.
Sao Joao del Rei is the transport town and it is 13 kilometres away, which is where the coaches arrive and where the steam train starts. Taxis and vans cover the gap constantly.
In Tiradentes you walk, and the surface is the point. The streets are PE DE MOLEQUE, large irregular stones laid without mortar and named after a peanut brittle they resemble, on gradients. There is no way around them and they are covered in the safety section.
The Tiradentes Packing List
Cool highland nights, unheated colonial rooms, brutal cobbles and a wet summer.
Our merino base layers are 100% Australian merino at 17.5 micron, and a long sleeve merino wool base layer for women is the thing most visitors to Minas wish they had brought. At 900 metres the daily swing is large and the evenings are genuinely cool for most of the year, and the pousadas and restaurants are thick-walled colonial buildings with no heating, so the inside is often colder than the street. Wool covers that in one layer. From May to September add a heavyweight merino base layer and do not treat it as a precaution.
A Columbia Fast Trek II fleece in every season here, including January, and a Marmot PreCip Eco rain jacket for the October to March afternoon storms, which arrive hard and fast.
Walking shoes with grip are the most important item on this list and this is not a comfort recommendation. The pe de moleque cobbles are large, uneven, loose in places and laid on slopes, and they are the reason people get hurt here.
An insulated water bottle for the Serra walks, and insect repellent, applied by DAY as well as at dusk for the reason in the health note below.
Not linked and worth packing: SOFT LUGGAGE RATHER THAN WHEELS, because dragging a roller case over pe de moleque is both miserable and loud at night in a small town; SOMETHING TO COVER YOUR SHOULDERS for the churches, which are working ones; CASH IN REAIS, since card acceptance in the smaller places is patchy; AND A TORCH OR A CHARGED PHONE, because the lanes are dimly lit and the surface is the hazard.
Recommended Tours and Experiences
Essential Resources for Women in Tiradentes
Emergency numbers: 190 for police, 192 for ambulance and 193 for fire, all free from any phone. Response here comes largely from Sao Joao del Rei, 13 kilometres away, which is the thing to factor in rather than the numbers.
THE COBBLES ARE THE HAZARD AND THEY INJURE MORE VISITORS HERE THAN ANYTHING ELSE. PE DE MOLEQUE is large irregular stone laid without mortar, individual stones sit proud or loose, and the streets run on real gradients. In the October to March rains they are slick, and at night they are poorly lit. Falls, turned ankles and broken wrists are the common outcome, and shoes with grip plus looking where you are walking rather than at the architecture is the whole of the answer. Much of the town is also effectively inaccessible to anyone using a wheelchair or with significant mobility difficulty, which is a fact to plan around rather than a complaint. THE COLD IS THE SECOND THING, as above: single figures on a winter night in unheated colonial rooms catches out visitors who packed for Brazil. ON THE SERRA WALKS, the paths are rough and the afternoon storms in summer arrive fast with lightning on an exposed ridge, so go in the morning. ON CRIME, this is one of the lowest-risk settings in Brazil: a small, prosperous, heavily visited heritage town where the national advice below is background rather than daily practice. The FCDO's named city sections are Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Brasilia and the north east, and MINAS GERAIS IS IN NONE OF THEM, which is worth saying as plainly as the warnings that do apply elsewhere. The realistic application of the national advice here is the coach journey in and out.
Theft is the realistic risk in Brazil and the FCDO is specific enough to be useful. Robberies are common in many cities and particularly on buses, thieves target mobile phones and the FCDO names the window BETWEEN 4PM AND 9PM, and attackers may be armed. THE ADVICE IS NOT TO RESIST: hand over valuables rather than arguing with someone who may be armed and under the influence. Thefts are especially common on public beaches, including ARRASTOES, where a large group runs through a stretch of beach grabbing everything, so take nothing to the beach you would mind losing and DO NOT GO ON TO CITY BEACHES AFTER DARK. And the FCDO is unambiguous about FAVELAS: avoid all of them, including favela tours marketed to tourists and any accommodation, restaurant or bar advertised as being inside one, and check that a GPS route is not taking you through one, because tourists have been shot after entering by accident.
UK FCDO: there are no advised-against areas in mainland Brazilian cities, and the one place the FCDO advises against all but essential travel is RIVER TRAVEL ON SPECIFIC AMAZON STRETCHES: along the Amazon west of Codajas and east of Belem do Solimoes in Amazonas State, along any part of the Itaquai or Japura rivers, and along the Rio Negro north or west of Barcelos, because of criminal activity in the border country Brazil shares with Colombia, Peru and Venezuela. NOTE THAT BELEM DO SOLIMOES IS A TOWN IN AMAZONAS AND NOT THE CITY OF BELEM IN PARA, which is 1,500km east and is not named. Four areas have their own sections covering ordinary crime rather than advice against travel: RIO DE JANEIRO, SAO PAULO, BRASILIA, where the FCDO names the central bus station area for theft, and NORTH-EAST BRAZIL, where it names theft from hotel and motel rooms and muggings, and advises using taxis after sunset rather than walking and avoiding quiet or deserted areas.
US State Department travel advisory: the Brazil advisory. Read the current level there directly rather than relying on a figure printed in any guide.
UK FCDO travel advice: gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/brazil, and read the safety and security page rather than only the landing page, because that is where the substance sits.
Main hospital: Tiradentes has a small health unit and the hospital is in SAO JOAO DEL REI, 13 kilometres away, with Belo Horizonte three hours off for anything major. Dial 192 for an ambulance. The FCDO says foreign nationals are entitled to emergency medical treatment in Brazilian public hospitals, which especially in the major cities tend to be overcrowded, with long waits for a bed and a lack of medication. Private hospitals in the big cities are genuinely good and expensive, and the FCDO notes they will not accept you unless you can show evidence of enough money or insurance to cover your treatment. A farmacia handles minor problems. TAP WATER IS TREATED AND GENERALLY SAFE IN THE MAJOR CITIES including Brasilia, Porto Alegre and Fortaleza, though most Brazilians drink filtered and bottled is universal. DENGUE IS THE REAL HEALTH RISK and Brazil has large annual epidemics, with chikungunya and Zika also present; the mosquito that carries all three bites BY DAY, so repellent is a daytime measure. YELLOW FEVER VACCINATION is recommended for much of the country and some onward countries require a certificate if you have been here, so check before you travel rather than at the border. At this altitude the dengue risk is lower than on the coast and is present, particularly in the wet season, so the daytime repellent habit still applies.
Official health authority: the Brazilian Ministry of Health, covers the national health service and the current dengue situation, which varies sharply by state and season
US Embassy: the United States Embassy in Brasilia.
Official tourism authority: Visit Brasil, the national tourism board, covers Brazil nationally, and the municipal tourism office publishes the Maria Fumaca running days, which are not daily, and the dates of the August gastronomy festival
Takeaways
Shoes with grip, not fashion. The pe de moleque cobbles are the real risk.
Pack warm layers. Winter nights hit single figures in unheated rooms.
The steam train does not run daily. Check before planning around it.
Soft luggage. A roller case over these stones is a mistake.
Solo women safety assessment: Tiradentes is one of the easiest and lowest-risk places in Brazil to travel alone. It is a small, prosperous heritage town whose entire economy is visitors, pousadas and restaurants, the centre is twenty minutes end to end, there is no district to avoid and no hour that changes the picture, and eating alone in a Minas restaurant is completely ordinary and in fact one of the pleasures of being here. The FCDO's named city sections cover Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Brasilia and the north east, and MINAS GERAIS IS IN NONE OF THEM, so the national advice is background rather than daily practice: its realistic application is the coach journey in and out, where the FCDO notes robberies are common on buses, names the window between four and nine in the evening, and advises not resisting. THE REAL RISK HERE IS THE GROUND. Pe de moleque cobbles are large, irregular, loose and laid on gradients, slick in the summer rains and poorly lit at night, and falls are by a wide margin the commonest injury in this town; shoes with grip are safety equipment and much of the old centre is effectively inaccessible with a wheelchair or significant mobility difficulty. The cold is the second: single figures on winter nights in buildings with no heating, which surprises people who packed for Brazil. On the Serra walks, go in the morning, because summer afternoon storms bring lightning onto an exposed ridge. Dengue is carried by a day-biting mosquito and is present in the wet season. 190 REACHES POLICE, 192 AMBULANCE AND 193 FIRE, with the hospital 13 kilometres away in Sao Joao del Rei.
Reading On
Tiradentes has one obvious companion and this library covers it. The Ouro Preto packing list covers the other great Minas colonial town two and a half hours north, which photographs almost identically, is larger, steeper and carries more of Aleijadinho's work, and reading the two together is the only sensible way to choose between them or to do both. In the same state, the Belo Horizonte packing list covers the capital three hours away that most visitors fly into. Beyond Minas, the Paraty packing list covers the colonial port on the Costa Verde where the gold from these hills was shipped out, which makes it the other end of the same history, and the Rio de Janeiro packing list covers the city Tiradentes was executed in. For more highland Brazil, the Campos do Jordao packing list covers the Sao Paulo mountain town where winter is also the high season. For the country, the Brazil travel guide for women carries the regions, the transport and the seasons in full. For why wool suits a cool highland evening in an unheated colonial room, read the guide to merino wool base layers for women. Every destination we cover is indexed at the travel packing guide for women, and the base layers are at the Roman Trail collection.
If the outer journey is calling you, the inner one usually is too. Explore SoulMap at romantrail.com/blogs/soulmap.
