Tourist Route Revitalizes the Trail Created by Muleteers to Carry out the Mineral Wealth of Minas Gerais

The Estrada Real is a 1,630-kilometer colonial-era road that runs through Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo. It is the country’s largest tourist route whose name has been used since the 17th century, when
Brazil was a colony of Portugal. This designation identified the trails used by those responsible for transporting the gold and diamonds mined from the interior of Minas Gerais and transported to the coast of Rio de Janeiro, from where they were sent to the Portuguese Crown.

The transformation of the Estrada Real into a tourist destination at the end of the 1990s was aimed at encouraging socioeconomic development and the offer of sustainable, quality tourist attractions along the trail, as well as reviving traditions and giving value to the identity and beauty of the region.

The Estrada Real encompasses a wide spectrum of attractions, ranging from cultural, historical, gastronomic, ecological, and adventure tourism, all sold in tourist packages created to make it easy for Brazilian and foreign tourists to access historical colonial cities such as Ouro Preto, Mariana, Diamantina, Tiradentes, São João De-Rei in Minas Gerais and Paraty in Rio de Janeiro. Those who have a taste for adventure and nature will be enchanted by the preserved areas of the Serra do Cipó and Mantiqueira ranges with their exuberant rivers, waterfalls, and mountains. Those who like culture will find plenty of attractions along the way, such as the Museu de Arte Contemporânea do Inhotim (Inhotim Museum of Contemporary Art), in Brumadinho, Minas Gerais, where gardens designed by Burle Marx encircle spacious galleries that display the works of renowned national and international artists such as Franz
Ackermann.

The Estrada Real tourism program is managed by the Instituto Estrada Real (IER), which was founded on October 5, 1999 as a non-profit civil association. The IER’s work, which relies on support from development bodies like the Interamerican Development Bank (IDB), aims to organize, stimulate, and manage the Estrada Real tourism product. Coordinated by the Federação das Indústrias do Estado de Minas Gerais (Federation of Industries of the State of Minas Gerais), in partnership with the Minas Gerais State Government, through the State Secretary of Tourism, the IER’s objective is to promote the sustainable development of tourism along the Estrada Real, which, today, comprises 199 municipalities, 169 of them in Minas Gerais, eight in Rio de Janeiro, and 22 in São Paulo.