Graffiti

What astonishes most visitors to Búzios is that it is actually a walled city. Not a Medieval walled city like Carcassonne in France or Ávila in Spain, but a walled city all the same. If you build a house in Búzios and if you have anything at all you want to keep out of other people's hands, you build a wall around it. Actually, the wall in Búzios is so fundamental that the wall is almost always built first. Then you may, if you’re really paranoid, cement shards of glass into the top of the wall or even run barbed wire along it. Only then is the house constructed inside the wall, as if it were a mere afterthought, or a detail.

And Búzios is no different from the rest of the world, where one man’s wall is another man’s blank canvas. Property owners do from time to time have to get out the paint can and paint over a "Dudu loves Angela" graffiti, but more often than not our bare walls are used for signage, they’re used to post menus, they’re used for sloganeering, and sometimes for fabulous, extravagant murals. Here’s a sample . . .

. . . of some signage . . . and some menus . . .
                                                        

. . . some great sayings and slogans . . .

"It's better to be happy than sad.
Happiness is the best thing that exists."
                               

"How many people must die in order for you to clean up your backyard? Dengue kills!"

"Where do you work out?"
"At the library!"

. . . there's some great stuff, kind of in English . . .

. . . there's trompe l'oeil . . .

 

. . . and lots of fabulous, arty stuff . . .