Metropolitan Cathedral of Sao Paulo

This very beautiful cathedral, at heart of Sao Paulo, the biggest city of Brazil, is the fourth largest neogotic temple of the world. Its construction started in 1913 and was completely finished only in 1967. It's the main church of catholic faith in the city and is located right beside the Sé metro station.

More on the Egyptian Museum

During our visit of the museum, on December 17, we saw a replica of a very important discovery: the Rosetta stone, which was key to fully decode the Egyptian hieroglyphics. The original piece is in the British museum in London. The Rosetta was discovered by the French Jean Claude Champollion, who also decoded the hieroglyphics.

We also saw the statue of Hatshep-sut, the only woman Pharaoh of Egypt, who ruled from 1350 to 1370 B.C.

The Dubai Creek

12/28/2016 - The Dubai Creek is an area around the canal, where spice markets are since the beginning of the city. We took a private boat with our guide and crossed the canal to reach the most interesting markets. Dates, pure or surrounded with chocolate made with camel milk, camel milk chocolate, all kind of spices, souvenirs and other different things can be found in the creek area.

Burj Al Arab

12/28/2016 - Continuing our afternoon tour, our driver stopped at the incredible 7 stars hotel Burj Al Arab, where we cannot even walk in, unless a reservation for a meal, a tea or a stay is done. The cheapest way to visit it without being invited is to appoint for a tea, which is quite complete, but costs above US$ 120 per person, so we declined.

Al Fahidi historic neighborhood

12/28/2016 - In this historic small neighborhood we could see how old life style was in Dubai. The interior of a rich house has a living room where only women and children are invited, while men visitors stay in a separate room. This way women could stay relaxed, showing her hair. In the presence of a man, if not the husband, woman should cover hair and can only show hands a part of the face (Dubai is a Muslim kingdom).

Tour around Dubai

12/28/2016 - Terra Santa organized a private tour for us around the main points of interest in Dubai. By 2:30 PM a nice Lexus 350 with the driver and a Portuguese speaking guide was waiting for us. The guide is an Egyptian citizen who has being living in Dubai for 4 years now. He showed good knowledge of the country and history.

Dubai is a very modern city, with tall buildings like those you see in the picture. The city was built on the desert and most of it was done after 1990. Wide and modern highways cross the city in many directions. Most of the inhabitants are temporary workers from more than 100 countries. A lot of construction work is going on in Dubai, many of them have 24 hours of work in 3 shifts. There are some impressive things, like the giant tax free gold souk and the Dubai Mall, the biggest in the world. If you like to enjoy the view of the city from a very high tower, you can buy a ticket to the Burj Al Khalifa tower. The price varies with the season and the time of the day. The most expensive time frame is, of course, to go before sunset and enjoy day and night view. Some prefer to buy only for the 125-126th floor, while others pay some extra to go to the 148th floor. There is also a bar on the 124th floor, where you can go without a ticket, but you have to spend about the same for a dose of whisky.

The Gold Souk

12/29/2016 - During the morning we took the metro red line from our hotel, which was close to the Mall of Emirates, till the Union station, taking the intersecting green line till the Al Ras station, which is close to the Gold Souk. This area is full of jewelry stores, mostly gold and precious stones, and is the best in the world to by gold jewelry. This market is highly controlled by the government for quality and origin, so you can buy safely in those stores, but take care: don't buy anything from this guys on the street! They will bother you a lot all along the streets trying to sell fake Chinese clocks and other stuff.

One interesting thing you'll see is the Guinness book gold ring, more than 58 kg of gold. Dubai is known for its 24, 22 and 21 karat gold, but also 18K and others are common. When my wife was already crazy of seeing millions of dollars in gold in all those stores displays, we went back to the hotel like two poor dogs ...