Belem

A sprawling riverside market of an iron fish hall and open-air stalls, its name meaning check the weight. The sight of acai baskets being unloaded from boats belongs to the hours of dawn, before sunrise.

Three old dockside warehouses on the river converted into restaurants and shops, opened in 2000. A stage hung from rails in the roof glides overhead during shows, and the river terrace looks straight into the sunset.

A basilica modelled on a church in Rome, its inner walls and columns faced with marble shipped from Italy. The October procession ends here, and on that day millions walk behind the statue of the Virgin.

A park laid out on wetland by the Guama River, where egrets and scarlet ibises stroll about with no fences. It has a butterfly house and a viewing tower whose top takes in the river and downtown in one sweep.

The fort the Portuguese raised first when they founded the city in 1616, its cannon still aimed at the river. Inside is a room of Indigenous artefacts, and the ramparts face the forested islands across the water.

A theatre opened in 1878, when the rubber boom flooded the city with money, its ceiling painting and European-made fittings still intact. Outside show times, guided tours lead through the auditorium and the salon for dignitaries.

A river island roughly a 15-minute boat ride from downtown, with stilt restaurants and cacao smallholdings scattered through the waterside forest. Farm families show how they make chocolate from their own cacao and let you taste it.

The forest park of an Amazon research body founded in 1866, putting rainforest animals and giant trees in the middle of downtown. There is a manatee tank and a jaguar enclosure, and the canopy is thick enough to make midday walks easy.

A vast estuary island about 3 hours away by boat, with so many water buffalo that the police patrol on buffalo-back. Long sandy beaches line its coast where river water mixes with the sea.

A square laid out in late 19th-century style with iron pavilions, little bridges and ponds. As befits a city famed for mango-lined avenues, its shade runs deep, and in the morning many people walk laps around the pavilions.

An 18th-century mansion beside the fort, named for the eleven windows across its front. Once a sugar planter's home and later a hospital, it now shows contemporary art, and its back terrace is a sunset seat facing Guajara Bay.

An 18th-century cathedral on a square in the Cidade Velha, the old town, completed under the Bologna-born architect Antonio Landi. Twin bell towers rise from its white front, and crossing the square brings you straight to the fort and the river.

A church built by the Jesuits in the 18th century and now used as a sacred art museum. Its wooden pulpits and saints, carved by Indigenous craftsmen, show European Baroque shaped by Amazonian hands, and it faces the cathedral.

A woodland park on Belem's eastern edge, wrapped around Bolonha and Agua Preta lakes, the water supply reservoirs. People walk the forest trails or rent bikes to circle the shore, and many exercise in the cool morning hours, ahead of the fierce heat.

A river island about 70 km north, reached by bridge, ringed with freshwater beaches where waves roll in as if from the sea. In July, when schools break, Belem families holiday here and the beach restaurants and roads are at their busiest.

A riverside district to the north where workshops in the Paracuri area shape pottery modelled on ancient Marajoara designs from Marajo Island. In their yards you watch wheels turn and patterns get incised, and can buy pieces on the spot.