"When I was a boy..." Campinas by hugolorenzetti

You know those films in which the main character is from a country town, and all he does is to manage to get out and experience the world and never go back? What they never tell is how much you miss your hometown after you leave it, no matter how much you cursed it, hated it. Well, that's where your memories are, where you folks remained, where life used to be simple, and where we used to take pleasure from the smallest things.

Campinas is not every toristy, but it is a really beautiful city. You are likely to land here only as a journey break or if you came tostudy at the excellent (not only because I graduated in Literature there) Universidade Estadual de Campinas, known as Unicamp.

Campinas is big, with over a million inhabitants, but still, since it's too close to São Paulo - at least that's my theory - it doesn't get the same chance to be a thriving cultural centre, nor has it the complete metropolitan charm. That said, the city is a major high technology industrial area, with great centres of research on many important matters and provides very good levels of life to its inhabitants.

The nice shady square around the statue

The city centre has got its charms, though many of the historical buildings have given place to high rises or parking lots. The neighbourhoods of Cambuí and Guanabara provide shady streets with good commerce and EXCELLENT, REALLY EXCELLENT, restaurants. The former has got the best bar nightlife in the city, and you can easily and safely do some bar hop there.

There's also the neighbourhood of Barão Geraldo, near the campi of Unicamp and of the Catholic University that is quite lively during school period, with good bars and nice strollable streets, as well as the old Casas Grandes, the main house of the old time's farms that used to share the land now occupied by a lot of people.

Since I don't have many pictures of the city, I won't post too much about it. But next time I visit there, I will, since it will be my last time before leaving to Africa for the next 3 years. Then I'll write lots of tips.

• Pros:Good place to live, if you want big money
• Cons:A bit too dull for a city of its size
• In a nutshell:Where all my childhood memories dwell