This week was not only about the beach! We spent 2 days in Sao Paulo (maybe not giving justice to the 6 or 8 largest city in the world depending which list you use) and a small old Portuguese colonial town Paraty on the coast (or Parati as spelling varies as even the local seem to be unable to agree on one or the other) on the coast with only a little break on the way there in Ubatuba (what a name!) to mark our crossing of the Tropic of Capricorn. At the end of the week arrived on Ilha Grande, apparently a highlight of the Brazilian beach experience. In this blog I will try to talk a little bit about the people we met along the way and really great food that we had.
Sao Paulo is humongous city but luckily for not that many tourists visiting it has an efficient subway system and not too many tourist attractions so we were able to see most of it in 2 days. The most striking thing about Sao Paulo to me was its cleanliness; much cleaner place than BA or Montevideo and certainly than NYC and the other one the mixing of old sometimes not very well maintained buildings with the modern and not necessarily pretty architechture. The first day we did the touristy walk (based on lonely planet directions) through the major attractions in the centre; old churches, cathedral, old colonial building, parks and financial district, where disappointingly the lift to the top of the tallest building with the city panorama was closed but instead we met Sao Paulo own Michael Jackson performing on the street accompanied by mimicking local bums. We augmented the lonely planet suggested path with a visit to Japanese district, home to the largest Japanese population outside of Japan for a delightful and pretty authentic Japanese lunch. We spent the afternoon in Avenida Paulista, Sao Paulo’s equivalent of 5th Avenue lined with high rise buildings made even higher but telecom towers visible from everywhere (I guess Sao Paulo does not care as much about its skyline as NYC or London where you can barely see them at all) and finished in the shopping mall where I got my haircut at the chain and extremely expensive hairdresser (it was more than I ever paid in London!).
The second day was all about museums and my failed quest for finding some work of Vik Muniz, a Sao Paulo born artist featured in the wonderful documentary Wasteland about his project in the largest garbage dump in Rio. Two arts museums: Museo de Arte Moderna and Museo de Arte Contemporanea (Oscar Niemayer) are in the big but not easily navigable Parque Ibirapuera where the exhibitions were rather uninspiring but we finished the day in the main arts museum Museo de Arte de Sao Paulo where we were treated with a delightful exhibition ‘Romantism’ featuring all the impressionist classic, wonderful Brazilian photography featuring mostly Salvador and to Gavin’s delight a special exhibition of Roman art. Not bad museum score for one day! One has to remember that in tropics museums provide also much needed cooling space. In between the museums we treated ourselves with the long walk in the Sao Paulo’s posh central neighbourhood of Jardims and its Soho like street Rua Oscar Freire with very expensive shops and restaurants where we found this delight... a jewish café serving all the polish specialities. The moment I sat down I was embraced by the owner, a lovely older lady, and showed in person all the choices for the day: pierogi, kasha with minced meat (klops), mizeria (a cucumber, dill and sour cream salad) and all of it was lovely. The lunch finished with the long talk over coffee with her and her son about food and everything else and that was clearly the highlight of my Sao Paulo. To complete the list of our Sao Paulo culinary journey: we had pizza on the night of arrival, the second day ‘dined’ in the Sao Paulo’s Lebanese chain Habibs and had our last diner in the French restaurant in Villa Madalena, a hip hilly neighbourhood, not a bad score with the Japanese and Jewish/Polish lunch. The only thing that Sao Paulo was lacking was the American chains to provide for easy toilet access in the city so we were forced to pop in to a little café on Oscar Freira that advertised as ‘Best Chocolate Cake’ in the world and despite being absolutely full we bought one (in disbelieve that it actually could be true) just to use their facilities. To our surprise it turned out to be the world’s best chocolate cake or at least we could not remember having a better one, ever! They only had 3 kinds of cake: dark chocolate, classic and without sugar, all made of chocolate merengue and wonderfully light and creamy chocolate cream. Maybe that’s good for our weight that we only stayed in Sao Paulo for 2 days!
Parati – the German globetrotter chef, and the German fellow diners
In Parati we were back on the tourist path. Parati is an old and cute colonial town with the restored Portuguese coble streets and small cute (again) houses revived just to cater for tourists which basically means tacky and expensive trinket and clothing shops and restaurants of all kinds and the boats offering all kind of ‘passeos de barque’ to surrounding beaches and islands that are supposed to be some of the best in Brazil. Given that we were in Ubatuba before and heading to Ilha Grande we just focused on the town itself mostly strolling the streets, taking loads of photos, while the evening were spent on dining and in my case sipping caipirinhas. Caipirinha is Brazilian national drink (made of sugar cane alcohol cachaca) but Parati is where the drink originates from so we were saving our first taste of the Brazilian staple liquor till now. The first diner was in the restaurant run by French chef and his Portuguese wife where we had the French classic, croquet madame and crepe with meat filling both really good and unlike anything in Brazil in the edible size! The second night we followed lonely planet recommendation and decided to go to the restaurant run by the German chef and Japanese wife (ah these mixed nationality couples!). At first it was not inviting with the expensive menu and no guest other than a German couple occupying one of the two seats outside but after me exchanging a few greetings in German we decided it may end up an interesting evening and sat in the second and last table outside and ordered a sea food stew called Caldeirada (which I am told is actually Portuguese not Brazilian but it does not matter cause it was really good). The German couple turned out to be a good dining company and we chatted our way through the evening while caipirinhas were helping to animate the conversation. I found out that the guy was involved in designing and furnishing interiors of KPMG offices in eastern Germany, interesting connection with my previous employer and now retired and moved to Parati where he is building his new home (not a bad place to retire at all). The German chef joined our conversation as we were talking about our trip and when we told him that it took us from 2nd January in Ushuaia to get to Parati on 9th March he said that it was a rather slow pace! What a comment after we cut down Sao Paulo to 2 days only!
Ubatuba – Azul Marinho
Most of the people would have headed straight from Sao Paulo to Parati but we were sort of lured to Ubatuba by funny name and a smiley face my sister drawn on that page in lonely planet that borrowed for the trip. Only when in town we discovered that a visit had an added benefit of marking our crossing of a Tropic of Capricorn! Ubatuba is a coastal province of Brazil full of wonderful beaches but if you rely on a public transport the best place to stop is the main town of the same name. The town had a really lovely promenade along the coast and appear to be as the bicycle capital of Brazil. Everybody biked, like in Amsterdam. Given our short stop here we only visited one of apparently 102 beaches (Praia Vermelha do Norde) and walked the promenade. We dedicated our only diner to the local specialty Azul Marinho. It is a stew of fish and bananas and some spices that has indeed a strangely bluish colour and tastes wonderfully subtle, definitely in my book the best fish soup I have ever had save the sea food stew in Parati, forget the French Bouillabaisse, or whatever the correct spelling is.
Ilha Grande is supposed to be highlight of the Brazilian beaches. It has only one main village with few cars and beaches that are either accessible by some extensive hiking or by boat (hiking it is if you cheap or like it). It saved its remote character because of its history of being a prison island and a leper colony, a bit spooky past to allure tourist but it truly does! We arrived there on Saturday on the ferry boat that was almost full, and that being out of season! On the day of arrival we did not do much but on Sunday we set out what turned out to be 2 hours rather steep hike in a tropical heat on a road in the jungle to the beach called 2 Rios. The beach indeed has 2 rivers flowing to the ocean on each end which makes it a really pictureques setting. There were rather few people on the whole beach mostly congregated in the shades of the big trees in the middle or at both ends when rivers join the ocean. It was under the shaded tree when I heard to conversation in my native tongue by 3 guys and 1 girl that turned out to be young medics from Wroclaw. On the way back after emerging back on the road from the rather unmarked shortcut straight through the jungle we met them again and chatted about everything and nothing all the way back to the village in the tropical rain and thunders. After arriving in town we awarded ourselves with a diner in what tripadvisor.com claims as the nicest restaurant in the village. It was nice indeed but expensive so we settled for a dish at the lower end of the menu: strogonoff. The only thing it had in common with the classic receipt was beef and creamy tomato sauce but there were no mushrooms or cornichons. They were substituted with palmitos (or hearts of plams) which I think now is a Brazilian staple vegetable!
Sao Paulo – the Jewish mother and her polish specialities and the best chocolate cake in the world
Sao Paulo is humongous city but luckily for not that many tourists visiting it has an efficient subway system and not too many tourist attractions so we were able to see most of it in 2 days. The most striking thing about Sao Paulo to me was its cleanliness; much cleaner place than BA or Montevideo and certainly than NYC and the other one the mixing of old sometimes not very well maintained buildings with the modern and not necessarily pretty architechture. The first day we did the touristy walk (based on lonely planet directions) through the major attractions in the centre; old churches, cathedral, old colonial building, parks and financial district, where disappointingly the lift to the top of the tallest building with the city panorama was closed but instead we met Sao Paulo own Michael Jackson performing on the street accompanied by mimicking local bums. We augmented the lonely planet suggested path with a visit to Japanese district, home to the largest Japanese population outside of Japan for a delightful and pretty authentic Japanese lunch. We spent the afternoon in Avenida Paulista, Sao Paulo’s equivalent of 5th Avenue lined with high rise buildings made even higher but telecom towers visible from everywhere (I guess Sao Paulo does not care as much about its skyline as NYC or London where you can barely see them at all) and finished in the shopping mall where I got my haircut at the chain and extremely expensive hairdresser (it was more than I ever paid in London!). 
The second day was all about museums and my failed quest for finding some work of Vik Muniz, a Sao Paulo born artist featured in the wonderful documentary Wasteland about his project in the largest garbage dump in Rio. Two arts museums: Museo de Arte Moderna and Museo de Arte Contemporanea (Oscar Niemayer) are in the big but not easily navigable Parque Ibirapuera where the exhibitions were rather uninspiring but we finished the day in the main arts museum Museo de Arte de Sao Paulo where we were treated with a delightful exhibition ‘Romantism’ featuring all the impressionist classic, wonderful Brazilian photography featuring mostly Salvador and to Gavin’s delight a special exhibition of Roman art. Not bad museum score for one day! One has to remember that in tropics museums provide also much needed cooling space. In between the museums we treated ourselves with the long walk in the Sao Paulo’s posh central neighbourhood of Jardims and its Soho like street Rua Oscar Freire with very expensive shops and restaurants where we found this delight... a jewish café serving all the polish specialities. The moment I sat down I was embraced by the owner, a lovely older lady, and showed in person all the choices for the day: pierogi, kasha with minced meat (klops), mizeria (a cucumber, dill and sour cream salad) and all of it was lovely. The lunch finished with the long talk over coffee with her and her son about food and everything else and that was clearly the highlight of my Sao Paulo. To complete the list of our Sao Paulo culinary journey: we had pizza on the night of arrival, the second day ‘dined’ in the Sao Paulo’s Lebanese chain Habibs and had our last diner in the French restaurant in Villa Madalena, a hip hilly neighbourhood, not a bad score with the Japanese and Jewish/Polish lunch. The only thing that Sao Paulo was lacking was the American chains to provide for easy toilet access in the city so we were forced to pop in to a little café on Oscar Freira that advertised as ‘Best Chocolate Cake’ in the world and despite being absolutely full we bought one (in disbelieve that it actually could be true) just to use their facilities. To our surprise it turned out to be the world’s best chocolate cake or at least we could not remember having a better one, ever! They only had 3 kinds of cake: dark chocolate, classic and without sugar, all made of chocolate merengue and wonderfully light and creamy chocolate cream. Maybe that’s good for our weight that we only stayed in Sao Paulo for 2 days! 
In Parati we were back on the tourist path. Parati is an old and cute colonial town with the restored Portuguese coble streets and small cute (again) houses revived just to cater for tourists which basically means tacky and expensive trinket and clothing shops and restaurants of all kinds and the boats offering all kind of ‘passeos de barque’ to surrounding beaches and islands that are supposed to be some of the best in Brazil. Given that we were in Ubatuba before and heading to Ilha Grande we just focused on the town itself mostly strolling the streets, taking loads of photos, while the evening were spent on dining and in my case sipping caipirinhas. Caipirinha is Brazilian national drink (made of sugar cane alcohol cachaca) but Parati is where the drink originates from so we were saving our first taste of the Brazilian staple liquor till now. The first diner was in the restaurant run by French chef and his Portuguese wife where we had the French classic, croquet madame and crepe with meat filling both really good and unlike anything in Brazil in the edible size! The second night we followed lonely planet recommendation and decided to go to the restaurant run by the German chef and Japanese wife (ah these mixed nationality couples!). At first it was not inviting with the expensive menu and no guest other than a German couple occupying one of the two seats outside but after me exchanging a few greetings in German we decided it may end up an interesting evening and sat in the second and last table outside and ordered a sea food stew called Caldeirada (which I am told is actually Portuguese not Brazilian but it does not matter cause it was really good). The German couple turned out to be a good dining company and we chatted our way through the evening while caipirinhas were helping to animate the conversation. I found out that the guy was involved in designing and furnishing interiors of KPMG offices in eastern Germany, interesting connection with my previous employer and now retired and moved to Parati where he is building his new home (not a bad place to retire at all). The German chef joined our conversation as we were talking about our trip and when we told him that it took us from 2nd January in Ushuaia to get to Parati on 9th March he said that it was a rather slow pace! What a comment after we cut down Sao Paulo to 2 days only! 
Most of the people would have headed straight from Sao Paulo to Parati but we were sort of lured to Ubatuba by funny name and a smiley face my sister drawn on that page in lonely planet that borrowed for the trip. Only when in town we discovered that a visit had an added benefit of marking our crossing of a Tropic of Capricorn! Ubatuba is a coastal province of Brazil full of wonderful beaches but if you rely on a public transport the best place to stop is the main town of the same name. The town had a really lovely promenade along the coast and appear to be as the bicycle capital of Brazil. Everybody biked, like in Amsterdam. Given our short stop here we only visited one of apparently 102 beaches (Praia Vermelha do Norde) and walked the promenade. We dedicated our only diner to the local specialty Azul Marinho. It is a stew of fish and bananas and some spices that has indeed a strangely bluish colour and tastes wonderfully subtle, definitely in my book the best fish soup I have ever had save the sea food stew in Parati, forget the French Bouillabaisse, or whatever the correct spelling is. Ilha Grande – young polish doctors from Wroclaw & Brazilian strogonoff
Ilha Grande is supposed to be highlight of the Brazilian beaches. It has only one main village with few cars and beaches that are either accessible by some extensive hiking or by boat (hiking it is if you cheap or like it). It saved its remote character because of its history of being a prison island and a leper colony, a bit spooky past to allure tourist but it truly does! We arrived there on Saturday on the ferry boat that was almost full, and that being out of season! On the day of arrival we did not do much but on Sunday we set out what turned out to be 2 hours rather steep hike in a tropical heat on a road in the jungle to the beach called 2 Rios. The beach indeed has 2 rivers flowing to the ocean on each end which makes it a really pictureques setting. There were rather few people on the whole beach mostly congregated in the shades of the big trees in the middle or at both ends when rivers join the ocean. It was under the shaded tree when I heard to conversation in my native tongue by 3 guys and 1 girl that turned out to be young medics from Wroclaw. On the way back after emerging back on the road from the rather unmarked shortcut straight through the jungle we met them again and chatted about everything and nothing all the way back to the village in the tropical rain and thunders. After arriving in town we awarded ourselves with a diner in what tripadvisor.com claims as the nicest restaurant in the village. It was nice indeed but expensive so we settled for a dish at the lower end of the menu: strogonoff. The only thing it had in common with the classic receipt was beef and creamy tomato sauce but there were no mushrooms or cornichons. They were substituted with palmitos (or hearts of plams) which I think now is a Brazilian staple vegetable! What a week! I think it deserved a little bit longer blog to sum up the locations, its delicacies and interesting encounters.
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