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Heading down Presidente Vargas towards the river, the old part of town - the Cidade Velha - lies off to the left, full of crumbling Portuguese colonial mansions and churches. The oldest church of all is the Igreja das Merces , Rua Frutuoso Guimaraes 31. Architecturally it's nothing special, but as a living, working relic it's totally fascinating, full of quaint little touches. The holy water, for example, is dispensed from an upside-down rum bottle with the label half torn off. This is a pleasant area to wander, and it's not much further to the river docks and the hectic and anarchic market in Amazonian produce, overlooked closely by the old fort. Ver O Peso market is not quite the colourful spectacle it once was, but it remains the liveliest spot in town early in the morning (apart from one or two of the more energetic nightclubs). Ver O Peso ("see the weight") was originally a slave market, but these days its main commodities are fish, fruit and vegetables, manioc flour, nuts and other jungle produce. There's not much that is aimed at tourists, but Ver O Peso is one of the most interesting traditional markets in all South America and is a good reason in itself to visit Belem. There are sections devoted to aromatic oils, medicinal plants and herbs, and an expanding sector selling locally produced craft goods. It can be a dangerous place, so leave your valuables somewhere safe, and it's not a good idea to go to the market area at any time other than the morning. In recent years, the riverfront promenade northeast of the market has been cleaned up and turned into an attractive pedestrian walkway, lined with tourist-oriented stalls. The nearby square, Praca Dom Pedro, offers views across to the Forte do Castelo (daily 8am-11pm), an old fort built by the Portuguese in 1616, and today taken over by a bar, artesanato shop and the luxurious Circulo Militar restaurant. Opposite the fort are two more important churches: the eighteenth-century Igreja Santo Alexandre , which now houses a small religious art museum, and the finer Catedral de Nossa Senhora da Graca on Praca Frei Caetano Brandao. The cathedral was built in 1748, though it has been renovated many times since, including in the nineteenth century when the original wooden altar was replaced by one of marble and alabaster, over 10m high, designed by Luca Garimi; the interior of the cathedral is hung with some fine paintings. The architectural highlights of Cidade Velha, however, dominate the square behind the old port and Ver O Peso. Together with the Opera House in Manaus, the magnificent palaces of Lauro Sodre and Antonio Lemos are the finest buildings left by the rubber boom. Until recently the seat of the mayor and state governor respectively, and more than a little run-down, they have been sensitively restored, with the addition of museums, and thrown open to the public for under $1.50 each. No visit to Belem would be complete without seeing them. The Palacio Lauro Sodre (Tues-Fri 10am-5pm), completed in the 1890s at the height of the rubber boom, has an elegant blue and white Neoclassical colonnaded exterior and a series of airy arched courtyards which are occasionally used as galleries for travelling exhibitions. Upstairs is the Salao Nobre, a huge suite of reception rooms running the entire length of the frontage with crystal chandeliers, beautiful inlaid wooden floors and Art Nouveau furniture, marred only by a few grim paintings. A separate section of the palace houses the Museu do Estado do Para (Tues-Fri 9am-6pm, Sat, Sun & holidays 9am-1pm), which has an archive of around 6000 historical pieces plus collections of Art Nouveau and modern art. Next door, painted a dazzling white, is the Palacio Antonio Lemos (Tues-Fri 10am-6pm, Sat 10am-1pm), built in the 1770s by Antonio Landi, a talented emigre Italian, who was also an artist and sketched the first scientifically accurate drawings of Amazonian fauna. It was from here that the joint Portuguese-Spanish border commissions set out to agree the frontiers of Brazil in colonial times. Para's independence from Portugal in 1822 and adhesion to the Republic in 1888 were declared from here, and it was on the staircase here that President Lobo de Souza was shot down on January 7, 1835, in the early hours of the Cabanagem Rebellion. The palacio later became the centre of days of street fighting at the rebellion's height, which left hundreds dead. Today it houses the Museu de Arte de Belem, containing paintings dating back to the eighteenth century, but it is the palace building itself which is the real highlight. Apart from the magnificent central staircase, carved from marble during the rubber boom, the ground floor and half of the first floor are still much as they were in the eighteenth century, uncluttered and elegant. The reception rooms overlooking the square were rebuilt at the turn of the century with no expense spared and, perhaps even more than the Manaus Opera House, give an idea of what an extrordinary period the rubber boom was.
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