Guaratinguetá

About Guaratinguetá

Brazil's first native-born saint came into the world here in 1739, and Guaratinguetá still wears that story proudly. Frei Galvão's birthplace, his sanctuary and a Franciscan seminary draw pilgrims all year, while the old centre around the Catedral de Santo Antônio keeps colonial-era mansions, a 19th-century market hall and a grand railway station from the coffee-and-rail age.

One of the oldest towns of the Vale do Paraíba, Guaratinguetá grew up on the Paraíba do Sul River on the route between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, and it also gave Brazil a president, Rodrigues Alves. Today it is a working city of around 118,000 people, home to the Air Force's specialist school and a busy industrial belt along the Via Dutra, so it feels lived-in rather than staged.

The town sits on the 'Circuito da Fé' with the national shrine at Aparecida and Cachoeira Paulista close by. To the north the land climbs toward the Serra da Mantiqueira, where the Gomeral district offers cool air, trails and a granite lookout over the whole valley.