Translitorânea BR101 – Brazil’s French Riviera
From Rio we headed south on the magnificent BR101 to Uruguay; 2,300 km (1,430m) of beautiful coastline. Much of this area was inaccessible except by sea up until the 1950s. But the BR101 changed all that and now this coastline, accessible from São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, is a busy strip of chic villages, towns, cities and beautiful beaches. Brazilians love their beaches! Endless golden sands, with skimpily clad sun worshippers playing volley ball, and eating their churrasco.
Our journey takes us through the picturesque towns of Paraty, with its lovely cobbled streets and port, to Curitiba, a city famous for its urban town planning. Here we spent five days waiting for the weather to clear before taking the famous Serra Verde Express railway between Morretes and Curitiba. We took a hop on/off bus tour around the city visiting the Oscar Niemeyer Museum, the Opera de Arame, Botanical Gardens and the “Oi” communications tower for the magnificent city view. Francine booked us tickets for an evening event at the opera house for a candlelight concert featuring the music of Queen.
The train journey is a great day out – we were collected from our campsite in the morning and taken to Morretes, a lovely old town, where we had a traditional lunch and walked around the town whilst waiting for our train at 15:30. The train slowly climbed the 952m, through tunnels and across bridges, along cliff hugging tracks to Curitiba. We booked a ‘boutique’ carriage with large windows and a viewing platform which was a great choice. There was even free flow beer!
From Curitiba we continued south to Blumenau, a Germanic town with the largest Oktoberfest outside Germany in October (unfortunately, we couldn’t hang around for it). Next was Florianopolis, capital of Santa Catarina state, with a large part of the city located on an island linked with two huge bridges. We stayed here a couple of days, ate great fish and then moved on towards Uruguay.
You most certainly do not fail to take us along with you on your fascinating and picturesque adventures and on this leg, hugging the sea coast. Thanks always and keep safe.
Wow! What an amazing part of your adventure , so much to do and see, absolutely fantastic. The train journey alone sounds wonderful. Can’t wait to see where you go next.
Take care.