Basílica de Nossa Senhora do Carmo

This guide to the Basílica de Nossa Senhora do Carmo in São Paulo follows Carmelite friars who built their first convent on a hilltop above the flood-prone Tamanduateí River in the 1590s, where an altar carved in 1766 caught candlelight for a century and a half. You'll hear why the state government tore the riverside church down in 1928, not for fire or flood but for a road, and how the old altars were carried plank by plank across town to a new hill in Bela Vista. It traces the Polish architect who was already building there to receive them.