Painted hill town of carnival
Olinda
A colonial town on hills above the sea near Recife, with bright house fronts, white churches and palm trees.
Why Olinda is olinda yellow
Olinda was founded by the Portuguese in 1535 on hills overlooking the Atlantic, next to what is now the city of Recife in north-east Brazil. It was burned by the Dutch in 1631 and rebuilt. Its steep cobbled streets are lined with joined houses, each front a different strong colour with white trim, and between them stand white Baroque churches and convents among palms and mango trees. Many artists keep studios here. The town is famous for its carnival, in which giant puppets several metres tall are carried through the crowds to the fast brass music called frevo, under small umbrellas in red, yellow, green and blue. Olinda has been a World Heritage Site since 1982.
Values are fair approximations of what the eye sees there, not measurements.
Written by the Rang desk with AI assistance. Background: "Olinda" on Wikipedia. If you know Olinda and we have it wrong, tell us.
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🇧🇷 Salvador's pastel heartPelourinhoThe old upper town of Salvador da Bahia: steep cobbled squares lined with pastel colonial houses and churches.
🇧🇷 White walls, coloured framesParatyA colonial port between forest and sea, where every house is white and every door and window frame is a bright colour.
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The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Mathura In: Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Pondicherry In: Karthik Easvur, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Kolkata In: Ketanmehta4u, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Mumbai In: iMahesh, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Pelourinho Br: Matti Blume, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Paraty Br: Lampiao3, Public domain, source