Curitiba began in 1693 as a gold-panning camp on the drovers' road and became a provincial capital in 1853. Its history sits in three layers: the colonial Largo da Ordem, the immigrant colonies of the 1870s, and the 20th-century capital.
Completed in 1737, this is Curitiba's oldest standing building — plain Portuguese colonial masonry with a squat bell tower. Inside is the Museu de Arte Sacra; the cobbled largo outside holds Casa Romário Martins, a house from around 1752.
Founded in 1876, this is the fourth-oldest museum in Brazil, housed since 1953 in a pink 1929 palace that was once the state governor's residence. Collections run from Kaingang and Guarani artefacts to documents of Paraná's 1853 emancipation.
Curitiba was legally founded on this square on 29 March 1693, when the pelourinho was raised and the first council sworn in. The neo-Gothic cathedral of 1893 stands on the site of the original 1714 mother church; a pavement marker records the founding.
Curitiba's city hall from 1916 until 1969, an eclectic French-influenced palace with a clock tower on Praça Generoso Marques. Restored in 2009 as a SESC cultural centre, it keeps the original marble staircase, ironwork and council chamber.
Seven pine log houses built by Polish colonists in the Thomaz Coelho settlement from 1878 were dismantled and rebuilt in this araucaria wood in 1980 for John Paul II's visit. Inside are iron stoves, painted icons and farming tools from Galicia.
Named for 19 December 1853, the day Paraná was separated from São Paulo province and Curitiba became a capital. The obelisk and the flower clock mark the emancipation, and plaques trace the town's growth from a drovers' halt to a seat of government.
The upper terminus of the Curitiba–Paranaguá railway, opened in 1885 after cutting 13 tunnels and 30 bridges through the Serra do Mar. The old station building now holds a railway museum with signalling gear, uniforms and rolling stock.
Built in 1929 for the Banco Francês e Italiano, this eight-storey art deco block was Curitiba's first tall building and its symbol of the mate-export boom. Bradesco restored the facade and banking hall in 1991 as a cultural space.
Families from the Veneto settled here from 1878 on land along the old mule road to the Campos Gerais. Stone-and-brick colonial houses, the Igreja São José and the Casa Culpi survive along and behind Avenida Manoel Ribas.
Opened by the Madalosso family in 1963 in the heart of the Italian colony and once listed by Guinness as the world's largest restaurant with around 4,600 seats. The galeto, polenta and radicchio menu is straight from 1870s Veneto smallholdings.
Brazil sent 25,000 troops to Italy in 1944-45 as the Força Expedicionária Brasileira. This museum on Praça do Expedicionário holds their uniforms, captured German equipment, letters and relics from the fighting at Monte Castello.
A church was raised on this corner in 1737 by the brotherhood of enslaved and freed Africans, who were barred from the parish church; the present building replaced it in the 20th century. The square keeps the old public fountain and Solar do Rosário.