Belo Horizonte

From the air, countries look different from one another. Somehow, they take on a strong identity, with vibrantly different colours, shapes and patterns marking them out from their neighbours. The huge country of Brazil, of course, looks different depending on which part of it you’re seeing. The area around Belo Horizonte, for example ­– the region of Minas Gerais – is all swirling green hills, scarred by opencast mineworkings, as the name of the area suggests. There are the remains of old gold mines, but these days most of the working miners are digging for iron.

The hills of Minas Gerais extend into Belo Horizonte. Towards the top of one of them lies a square popularly known as the Praça do Papa because Pope John Paul II celebrated mass there when he visited Brazil in 1980. It has a giant cross, astonishing views right across the whole city, and in the corner there used to be a popcorn seller.

My partner Ana grew up in Belo Horizonte and her grandfather used to take her up to the square to get popcorn. He would then sit and read his newspaper while she and her cousin ate their treat and played. He didn't buy them just any popcorn - this variety was made with coconut and condensed milk. But has the popcorn seller here now got any? You can bet he has. Ana soon has a cone full of it - and it's sweet enough to rot your teeth just by looking at it! She looks at the seller again. It couldn't be? Could it?

She's chatting with him. People in Belo Horizonte love to chat, as I am fast discovering. How long has he been working in the square? About 40 years, he says, maybe a bit more. And she's convinced. This is the very same man her grandfather used to buy from! She takes two mouthfuls, then has to wait until he's not looking before disposing of the rest in a nearby bin. The popcorn man may not have changed in three decades, but her tastes certainly have! We sneak off to buy fresh coconuts and drink the delicious water from inside.

Before visiting Belo Horizonte, I principally knew the city for two football matches. One took place before I was born, in the 1950 World Cup, when England infamously lost 1-0 to the United States. In those days, before live television, newspapers waited for the result to come across by teleprinter and, on seeing it, some journalists believed it was a misprint and that England had, in fact, won 10-1! The other match was the extraordinary World Cup semi-final in 2014, when the host nation were destroyed 7-1 by Germany. We saw the Mineirão stadium, where that match took place, and I thought back to watching the horror-struck Brazilian crowd on television as goal after goal went in against their team. It was probably the most remarkable football event I ever saw and it's entered the country's popular language and folklore. Ask them, and most Brazilians will tell you, a decade on, where they were and what they were doing that day.

But what's really striking about Belo Horizonte is not so much its place in football history (although Ana, as a fan of one of the city's two big teams, Cruzeiro, who play at the Mineirão, might have something to say about that), it's the genuine warmth and friendliness of its people, and their sense of humour. Not to mention the food, especially the wonderful local cheese, an ingredient of the regional delicacy pão de queijo, which literally translates as "cheesebread" but isn't really anything of the kind. Crisp on the outside and melting in the middle, with a great cheese flavour, pão de queijo has to be tasted to be believed. And, believe me, it has to be tasted in Belo Horizonte.

Food and people come together in the city market. Just going round the stalls, with their fresh local fruit and vegetables an exotic sight to the European eye, is enough of an experience. But now we're in a market bar, where a young barmaid is telling us how she manages to communicate with foreigners using her single word of English. What she does is smile sweetly, say "beer" and get bottles of all the beers available out on the bar. It usually works. Food is a trickier proposition, though. One day, she explains, a Scotsman came in. She knew he was a Scotsman because he was wearing a kilt, and she'd seen that somewhere in a Woody Woodpecker cartoon. He soon got across to her that he was hungry, but the bar's speciality dish is liver cooked with scarlet eggplant. How was she going to explain it to him? No problem for a resourceful communicator like her. She simply pointed more or less to where her own liver was and pulled out some of the exotic vegetable to show him.

Unfortunately, the Scotsman was not attracted by the prospect, so she had to try again. Pork was also on the menu. And which porcine character is so famous EVERYONE would know its name? "Peppa" she told him, insistently. But the Scotsman wasn't impressed by the thought of eating Britain's most celebrated cartoon pig. Getting a little desperate now, the barmaid remembered there were also steaks. But how was she going to suggest the idea of beef? Suddenly it came to her. She made horns with her fingers, then picked up a tea towel and waved it like a matador's cloak. It was the coup de grâce. The Scotsman placed his order. It's hard not to communicate with someone from Belo Horizonte.

It's the next day now. We're beside the lake in the Pampulha district of the city looking at the beautiful little church of St Francis. Designed by the great Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, its elegant curves and beautiful blue-and-white tiles are mesmerising, inside and out, although the design was rather too modern for the local archbishop when it was built in the middle of the last century. He refused to consecrate it and it remained unused for 15 years!

There are all kinds of opportunities for photos of the church against the lake. I'm taking a picture, but when I'm approached by a rather scruffy looking old man, I'm instantly suspicious. Just as quickly, I regret my mistrustfulness. "You'll get a much better picture from up there," says the man. "Come with me and I'll show you." Ana, who'd also been wondering about the man's intentions until he spoke, turns to me. "Now THAT'S Belo Horizonte!"