Qualla: Cidade Velha (Belém)

Cidade Velha (Belém): Introduction

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bgabel, CC BY-SA 3.0. The creek is gone now, filled in and paved over, but on 12 January 1616 it was the reason for everything. Francisco Caldeira Castelo Branco put his ships in at the mouth of the Piry, a tidal channel opening into Guajará Bay, and had his men drive posts into the mud for a stockade he called the Forte do Presépio — the Fort of the Nativity Scene. It was wood and straw, and it was meant to keep Dutch and French traders out of the Amazon. The dozen or so blocks that grew up behind it are called Cidade Velha, the Old City, and they are where Belém, and Portuguese Amazonia, begin.

Read more: Cidade Velha (Belém) on Qualla

Image: Bgabel | CC BY-SA 3.0

Cidade Velha (Belém): Mairi

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bgabel, CC BY-SA 3.0. The place already had a name before the Portuguese gave it one. The Tupinambá and Pacajá who lived along the Guamá called it Mairi, and the people of the surrounding villages answered to the cacique Guaimiaba. They fished the bay, moved through forests that flooded and drained wi...

Read more: Cidade Velha (Belém) on Qualla

Image: Bgabel | CC BY-SA 3.0

Cidade Velha (Belém): The Fort on the Bluff

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit (WT-en) Mimi at English Wikivoyage, Public domain. Wood gave way to stone, and the Presépio became the Forte do Castelo, a masonry work looking straight down the water where enemy sail would have appeared. Its original cannons are still mounted. Inside, the collection is older than anything Portugal built here: Marajoara and Tapa...

Read more: Cidade Velha (Belém) on Qualla

Image: (WT-en) Mimi at English Wikivoyage | Public domain

Cidade Velha (Belém): Our Lady of Grace

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Celso Roberto de Abreu Silva from Belém, Brasil, CC BY 2.0. A short walk uphill stands the cathedral, Nossa Senhora da Graça, completed in 1771 and known simply as the Sé. Its design owes much to Antônio José Landi, born Giuseppe Antonio Landi in Bologna, who came to the Amazon with a technical commission in 1753 and never left, spending ...

Read more: Cidade Velha (Belém) on Qualla

Image: Celso Roberto de Abreu Silva from Belém, Brasil | CC BY 2.0

Cidade Velha (Belém): Streets Named for Elsewhere

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Celso Abreu from Belém, Brasil, CC BY 2.0. Read the street signs and you get a map of somewhere else. Avenida Portugal. Rua de Aveiro. Rua de Óbidos, Rua de Breves, Avenida Almirante Tamandaré, Rua Ângelo Custódio — which locals long called the Rua Longa, the Long Street, and which was laid out in the 1600s. The third str...

Read more: Cidade Velha (Belém) on Qualla

Image: Celso Abreu from Belém, Brasil | CC BY 2.0

Cidade Velha (Belém): Tiles Paid For by Latex

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Celso Roberto de Abreu Silva from Belém, Brasil, CC BY 2.0. The neighborhood you walk through today is only partly colonial. Between roughly 1880 and 1912, rubber money washed over Belém, and the old quarter was refaced in it — European façades, imported ironwork, and above all azulejo, the glazed Portuguese tile that sheathes entire buil...

Read more: Cidade Velha (Belém) on Qualla

Image: Celso Roberto de Abreu Silva from Belém, Brasil | CC BY 2.0