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A good place to begin one's wanderings through downtown Belo Horizonte is the train station on Praca da Estacao, one of the city's prettiest buildings. A fine example of tropical Edwardiana, the pastel blue-coloured building was built in 1922 in the days when British companies dominated Brazil's railway system, but today the station is only used by passengers on the once daily Vitoria-bound service. The building's first floor is the meeting place of model railway enthusiasts who are happy to show visitors their display on Wednesday (8-10pm) and Saturday (2.30-6pm). Graced on both sides by imperial palms, Avenida Amazonas, one of the city's main arteries, leads up from Praca da Estacao into the Praca Sete . Humming with activity, Praca Sete is full of office workers (the area immediately around is the city's main financial district), and is also the main venue of street draughts tournaments, when rows of hustlers set up boards on the pavement and play all comers for money. Surrounding the square are bars and lanchonetes which stay open until midnight, even later at weekends, and when the rest of the city has gone home to sleep the square is taken over by scores of homeless people, huddling around fires on deserted pavements. A ten-minute stroll beyond Praca Sete, at the intersection of Rua Goitacazes and Rua Santa Catarina, is the Mercado Central (Mon-Sat 7am-6pm, Sun 7am-noon), a sprawling indoor market of almost four hundred stalls. There's an incredible range of goods on offer, ranging from the usual fruit, vegetables, cheeses and meats, to cachacas, spices and medicinal herbs, dogs, cats and parakeets, kitchen equipment, rustic handicrafts, and umbanda and candomble accessories.
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