Casa da Glória

Connected by a vivid-blue 2nd-story passageway (built to obscure nuns from public view during the building's 102-year stint as an orphanage and school), these two houses on opposite sides of the street once also served as the residence of Diamantina's diamond supervisors and the palace of its first bishop. Currently housing Diamantina’s Institute of Geology, the place has plenty of historical character, but exhibits are limited to a ragtag collection of old photos, mineral specimens and 19th-century German maps.