An amazing historical town surrounded by nature: PARANAPIACABA

• History

• Trains

• Nature

• Colonial towns

• Daytrips

If you like any of the mentioned above, you should keep on reading. This is my tip for your 

next weekend. I am sure you will love Paranapiacaba!

The town was founded in 1867 by the British who came to Brazil to start building the first 

railway of São Paulo. Together with other immigrants and some Brazilians, they settled right 

between the fazendas do café of Jundiaí province and the port of Santos, from where the coffee was 

exported to the rest of the world.

Coming from cool England to tropical Brazil must have been quite a change for the São Paulo 

Railway workers, so it seems they did everything in order to feel at home. They chose a place on the 

edge of the Serra do Mar, where a London-ish fog and rain are the most common weather 

conditions. Then, they built themselves a nice copy of the Big Ben tower, with a clock mechanism 

manufactured in England, and a colony of wooden houses in English-Brazilian style, with European 

sanitary standards of that time. Home sweet home!

To overcome the obstacle represented by a steep rocky slope of Serra do Mar, the first 

funicular system was built in 1860s. It used to be employed to transport coffee production as well as 

passengers. Nowadays it still carries the merchandize of Santos harbour, but the old deactivated part 

is opened to visitors. You don’t need to be exactly a train lover to appreciate the beauty of 

Paranapiacaba Funicular Museum. The fixed machines, the locomotives and wagons, the tools and 

the buildings themselves will take you straight to the romantic past of steel and steam.

Behind the Museum, there’s an opening between the hills through which you should be able 

to see the coast. Indeed, in Tupy-Guarani language, Paranapiacaba means “the place whence one 

sees the sea”. To be honest, you would need to be very lucky to glimpse it, as everything here is 

nearly permanently enveloped in the aforementioned fog.

Among the important buildings in Paranapiacaba, you shouldn’t miss the chief-engineer’s 

Victorian style residence called Castelinho, situated on top of a small hill (you can visit the inside of 

the mansion with a guided tour), the building of the club União Lyra Serrano that has been hosting 

cultural and social events for more than a hundred years, the old Market, the Charles Miller football 

field and the Church of Bom Jesus de Paranapiacaba. However, in my view, the ordinary residential 

houses alone are worth the trip. Strolling along the streets, I felt like back in Burma, the houses 

reminding me of the British colonial architecture of Orwell’s Burmese Days.

The sad thing about Paranapiacaba is that it’s slightly rundown, as it suffered an important 

period of degradation during the 1980s and 1990s. On the other hand, the good thing about 

Paranapiacaba is that it’s… slightly rundown. At first you feel like we could take better care of this 

place, restore a bit more, improve the museum’s display etc. But after a while you realize that this 

shabbiness and sleepiness actually give the town its particular atmosphere. With all that fog, old 

wooden houses and antique locos, Paranapiacaba has a really mysterious flair. Who knows, the 

mansion up the hill might even be haunted.

The historical value set aside, another wonderful point about Paranapiacaba is its setting in 

an exuberant rainforest. The town is literally absorbed by it. There is no ‘new town’, nor concrete 

suburb: as soon as you step out of the old village, you find yourself in the forest. If you fancy going 

for a trek, you need to hire a local guide registered at Associação de Monitores Ambientais. For 

further details, check with the Centro de Visitantes at Rua Direita n° 371.

Now, Paranapiacaba isn’t exactly close if you still have in mind your European scale, 

according to which you take a one-week holiday to go anywhere further than three hours’ drive. But 

if you have been living in Brazil for some time, you’ll find Paranapiacaba ‘bem pertinho’, next door 

basically! If you go by car, it will take you probably less than two hours, depending on the traffic. 

Public transport gives you the train/bus option, by which you reach the town within two and a half 

to three hours, depending on your starting point. Most of the websites tell you to board a CPTM 

train at Estação da Luz, but don’t believe everything you find online. In fact, you need to take the 

CPTM Turquesa line which stops at Brás, Mooca, Ipiranga or Tamanduateí (not Luz!). Once you reach 

the final station Rio Grande da Serra, ask around for bus n° 424.

If you find that spending six hours in transports within a single day is too much for you, there 

is another option: spend the night in Paranapiacaba, to make the journey worthwhile. On hotel 

booking websites you can find simple pousadas that won’t ruin your budget and the advantage of 

staying over is that you will have enough time to discover the village on one day and do a trek on the other.

A very romantic way to get to Paranapiacaba is to take the Expresso Turístico, this time yes, 

from Estação da Luz. It’s a ninety minutes ride in wagons pulled by a loco from the fifties. You need 

to book your seat well in advance on www.cptm.sp.gov.br, as the tickets get quickly sold out. The 

train leaves on Sunday (except second Sunday of the month) at 8.30am and returns the same day in 

the afternoon.

Paranapiacaba has plenty of local festivities, so check in advance if you want to experience 

some of them, such as the Gastronomical Festival, dedicated to a typical Atlantic Rainforest fruit 

called Cambuci.