Minas Gerais

Ouro Preto's wealth from 18th-century gold mining funded a concentration of Baroque churches and civic buildings unmatched elsewhere in Brazil, most famously shaped by Antônio Francisco Lisboa — known as Aleijadinho, a mixed-race sculptor and architect who, despite a debilitating illness in later life that gave him his nickname, produced the soapstone prophet sculptures at Congonhas and church facades throughout the region that define Brazilian Baroque art. The town's steep, cobbled streets climb a genuinely dramatic hillside site, with gold-gilded church interiors (the Church of São Francisco de Assis is the essential stop) still intact from the boom period. UNESCO-listed since 1980, Ouro Preto rewards a full day or an overnight to properly cover its churches, museums and the wider historic centre.

Inhotim, near Brumadinho and roughly an hour from Belo Horizonte, combines large-scale contemporary art installations and dedicated gallery pavilions with an extensive botanical garden landscaped across the site — visitors move between air-conditioned galleries showing major international and Brazilian contemporary artists and open garden areas holding site-specific outdoor works, a format genuinely closer to art parks like Naoshima or Storm King than a conventional museum. The scale is large enough that a single day covers only a portion of the site; serious visitors typically plan two days or accept that some pavilions will be missed. It has grown since its 2006 opening into one of the most significant contemporary art destinations in Latin America.