Given the choice between a 6 hour layover in Brasilia's airport or a 22 hour layover giving us the chance to explore Brasilia for a few hours, we opted to extend our time in Brazil's capital. Brasilia was created in the late 50s/early 60s when Brazil's president decided to move the capital from Rio. He hired Oscar Niemeyer as the architect for the city buildings and seemingly let Niemeuer have free reign to create some very unique, crazy buildings.
Brasilia is much larger than we anticipated, so we were very happy to find a city bus tour to show us the sights. It's definitely a planned city: take a look at the aerial view - it's laid out like an airplane, with most of the main buildings near the plane's fuselage.
The signature church is called the Crown of Thorns, and it may be the most unique church I've ever seen. I wasn't prepared for how beautiful the interior would be, or how colorful, given the stark white exterior. Quite simply stunning.
Other unique structures include one that looks like the planet Saturn,waterfalls coming out of buildings, lots of moats, an incredible bridge voted by some association as the Most Beautiful Bridge in the World, and a very stark presidential palace.
Away from the bus tour, we had a few minutes to stop into another church with beautiful blue Murano glass windows. They certainly know how to build visually stunning and unique churches in this town.
We all really enjoyed our stopover in Brasilia and voted it well worth our time. Plus we had beautiful blue skies, no humidity, and actually had to put on a sweater a few times. What a relief from the Amazon!
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