Sabará sits just 20 km east of Belo Horizonte, where the modern city's sprawl finally gives way to the wooded hills of the Rio das Velhas valley. It is the easiest of the historic Minas Gerais mining towns to reach — close enough to be swallowed almost into the metropolitan area, yet old enough to predate Belo Horizonte by nearly two centuries. Gold made it: founded around 1700 as one of the first settlements of the Minas gold rush, it was briefly one of the wealthiest places in colonial Brazil.
That wealth went largely into churches, and the churches are the reason to come. The Igreja de Nossa Senhora do Ó, finished in 1720, is the standout — a small chapel with an extraordinary interior of red, gold, and black lacquer painting showing a clear Chinese influence, brought back via Portugal's trade with Macau and unique among the colonial churches of Brazil. The unfinished Igreja de Nossa Senhora do Rosário, left as a roofless shell after the abolition of slavery halted its construction, is quietly moving, and the Igreja do Carmo holds work by the sculptor Aleijadinho and the painter Manuel da Costa Ataíde.
Beyond the churches, the historic centre is a compact, low-key grid of single-storey colonial houses, a couple of small museums (the Museu do Ouro, in the old royal gold-foundry building, is worth half an hour), and cafes around the main square. There is none of the tourist polish of Ouro Preto here; Sabará is a working town that happens to have kept its old core, and it is the better for it.
Most people visit on a relaxed half-day from Belo Horizonte. City buses run frequently and the trip takes well under an hour, or a local taxi will do a flat-rate return. Combine the three churches with a slow walk through the centre and lunch on the square, and you have seen the essentials. It pairs naturally with the grander colonial circuit of Ouro Preto and Congonhas if you have more time in the region.