The Sudeste is Brazil's heartland: Minas Gerais, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Espírito Santo, with nearly half the country's population and both of its great cities, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Between and around them lies some of the most varied travelling in Brazil.
Minas Gerais was the gold and diamond country of the eighteenth century, and its baroque towns are the best-preserved colonial heritage in the Americas: Ouro Preto above all, and Mariana, Congonhas, Tiradentes, São João del Rei and Diamantina. From Belo Horizonte it is also easy to reach Inhotim, a contemporary art park in a botanical garden, and the rocky highlands of the Serra do Cipó and Serra da Canastra.
The coast between Rio and São Paulo is the Costa Verde, where the Atlantic forest comes down to the sea: Paraty, Trindade, Ilha Grande, Ubatuba and Ilhabela. East of Rio, Búzios and Arraial do Cabo have the clearest water on the coast.
Inland, the mountains cool everything down: the imperial summer town of Petrópolis and the granite spires of the Serra dos Órgãos, and in the Serra da Mantiqueira, Itatiaia, Visconde de Mauá and Campos do Jordão.
Summer, December to March, is hot, humid and wet in the afternoons; winter is dry and mild on the coast and genuinely cold in the mountains.
