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Published: February 23rd 2020
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Arraial do Cabo
Arraial do Cabo is a typical bathing resort town where most everything revolves around the beach and the marina. There is a chunk of Finland hidden in Rio De Janeiro State
Over Christmas and New Year we went to Brazil for two weeks. Brazil is a huge country so we only had time to roam around a little bit in Rio de Janeiro State. Here we are going to write about what we saw during those days of this trip when we rented a car and drove around the state.
Arraial do Cabo We started this trip in
Arraial do Cabo, a coastal town a few hours drive east of Rio de Janeiro. It is a typical bathing resort town where most everything revolves around the beach and the marina. The marina sees action because the various boat tours leave from there. We went to Arraial do Cabo mainly to celebrate Christmas with some relatives. While there we also went on a boat tour.
We are sorry to say it, but in our opinion Arraial do Cabo is not a charming place. It worked fine though for what we had planned to do, which was to spend time with family.
Petropolis Next place
Interesting rock formation
Interesting rock formation we passed on a boat tour we took from Arraial do Cabo we visited was the town
Petropolis which is located to the north of Rio de Janeiro. It was, and might still be, popular as a getaway for the more wealthy people in Rio de Janeiro. Petropolis is located in the mountains and is thanks to the altitude cooler than Rio. When Rio was too hot in summer those who could afford simply left the coastal region and went to their vacation homes in Petropolis.
The wealthy people of course had their own villas in Petropolis. Many of the villas are beautiful and some of them are so large that they may be referred to as palaces.
We spent a few hours walking around in central Petropolis enjoying the pretty houses. When walking around we also saw some of the Christmas decorations in town. Many of those were tacky but one or two were a bit cute.
Itaiaia National Park We made a quick stop in Itaiaia National Park and explored a few of the waterfalls there. Most of the waterfalls were pretty small. But one was high and a bit spectacular. We shot a video of that one.
Penedo Penedo was founded by Finnish immigrants and they have made use of the Finnish heritage by turning the town into a "Little Finland". They have a Viking themed restaurant, a hotel named Santa Claus and an attraction billed as the home of Santa Claus. We found Penedo and the Finland/Scandinavia theme as good fun and we enjoyed it there. It is a bit weird and crazy but in a good way. It is a kind of place we like to visit.
Paraty Of the places we visited on this road trip,
Paraty and Petropolis came out as our favourites. Paraty is located on the coast a few hours drive west of Rio de Janeiro. Paraty's historical city centre is a well preserved old Portugese colonial town. That means cobbled streets and low houses with whitewashed walls and green, blue or yellow doors and jambs.
Outside Paraty there is a waterfall that goes under the name the Tarzan Waterfall. The locals have a dangerous hobby here. They surfslide down the smooth rocks of the waterfall and crash into the water at
Villa in Petropolis
The wealthy people of course had their own villas in Petropolis. Many of the villas are beautiful and some of them are so large that they may be referred to as palaces. the bottom. We don't want to know how many that sustain brain injuries due to falls while doing this. But the brain trauma ward in the local hospital is probably one of the best in entire Brazil. We have shot a film showing this surfsliding. Don't worry, there are no smashed brains in this film.
Bangu statue of Liberty - We made a quick stop in Bangu, just outside Rio de Janeiro, to see the copy of the Statue of Liberty they have there. It is much smaller than its counterpart in New York City and far less famous of course. It is not the only copy of the Statue of Liberty in Brazil but supposedly the one in Bangu is "an original copy". Please don't ask us to explain the difference between "an original copy" and all other copies. Anyway, the statue was only like 100 meters away from the highway we drove on to get back to the airport where we had to leave our rental car. It was so easy to drive off the highway, stop and take a photo, and then keep on driving again that we felt that
Villa in Petropolis
Petropolis was, and might still be, popular as a getaway for the more wealthy people in Rio de Janeiro. it was totally worth it.
In the end we have to write about one place we wanted to visit but couldn't - the Zeppelin hangar at Santa Cruz Air Force Base. It is probably the best preserved Zeppelin hangar in the world. But since it is located in an air force base special permission is needed to see it. It was unfortunately not possible to obtain such permission at the gate. They tried hard but eventually we had to leave without seeing it.
This is all for now. In the next blog post we will write about what we saw and did in Rio de Janeiro.
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Rainyb
Lorraine Brecht
Love the umbrellas!