Brasilia, the city from another planet

I never planned to visit the the Brazilian capital. A "serious" modern administrative city, far from the ocean or the mountains, it didn't appeal much to a beach bum like me.

However, I needed to renew my passport asap and found out I can only do it at the Bulgarian embassy in Brasilia... So I was kinda forced to plan an (expensive!) 4-day trip there.

And I'm happy that I did, because I actually enjoyed my time in the capital! It was a very different experience, I constantly felt like I was in an alien city.

Brasilia is a completely new city, built in the 60's with the purpose of becoming the new capital - and as a symbol that Brazil is no longer a developing nation, but a modern powerful country.

Since it's a new city built in the middle of nowhere, it's perfectly planned and with lots of space. It was very weird to see all these tall modern buildings surrounded big grassy parks and lots of empty space.

Brasilia feels like an alien city on another planet. It was basically a playground for the famous Brazilian Architect Oscar Niemeyer.  He designed the iconic cathedral of Brasilia in his otherworldly style - unlike any other church.

He also designed the National Museum, which sits right next to the Cathedral. Unfortunately I was unable to enter, as it was closed on the days I was there.

From here I took a walk down to the Ministries Esplanade. This is an extremely wide road, with countless identical ministry buildings on each side. The presidential office is also here, as well as other important monuments.

On another day I visited the "blue church". Very ordinary looking on the outside (thus no photo) but completely blue - and very beautiful - on the inside!

I spent the rest of my time in Brasilia working,and spoiling myself with restaurants and shopping.

My favourite restaurant was Mangai - an upper scale buffet with more than 40 dishes to choose from. The worst part? It had a deserts buffet as well... I ate here twice, as all the food was amazing. Both times I paid less than $20 for all the food, including dessert and drinks!

And I also managed to get a new temporary passport, which is what I came for :) It was my first time getting one of these outside Bulgaria. It was very easy, got done in a couple of hours and the woman was very sweet and helpful.