I didn’t know Florianópolis, but I always wanted to go to the city. The problem is that tickets leaving Belo Horizonte used to be very expensive. So, one day, already living in São Paulo and researching on Melhores Destinos, I found a ticket at a wonderful price (R$ 180.00) to spend a weekend in the capital of Santa Catarina. I informed Rafa and Naty and we bought it.
The first thing you should take into account if you are going to spend the weekend in Floripa is what you want to see there. As the city is on an island, things are spread out and far from each other. Public transport is very poor and taxis are almost impossible (we’ll talk about this in the next post). Therefore, renting a car ends up being the solution – in this text we explain how to guarantee the best cost-benefit daily rental of the vehicle. But even so, the ideal is to stay closer to the region you want to visit.
We stayed at the HI in Barra da Lagoa (which is great and cheap, by the way. The feeling I had, upon arriving in this region, on a Friday night, in April (in other words, out of season) was that I was entering in a fishing village, very similar to the one I was in Indonesia. Several small houses, lots of green and unpopulated area and a single winding lane. It definitely completely meets my notion that the capital of a state needs to be a metropolis Densely populated and with buildings everywhere.
Barra da Lagoa is a hidden corner of the Lagoa da Conceição region, which is on the east side of the island. On the edge of the Lagoa there are several restaurants and bars – not all of them were open in the low season, but I would venture to say that in the high season it should be booming. You can also take boat trips, which cost around 15 reais. Barra da Lagoa is an environmentally preserved beach, with the headquarters of the Tamar Project. It’s a beautiful beach, very clean, with several cheap kiosks owned by Argentinians. I thought it was incredible: when I entered the sea and saw little fish passing by my foot.
Nearby is also the famous Praia Mole. It is famous for surfers and the GLBT community. There are some rave-style parties there. We didn’t go, but they recommended it to me.
Other very famous beaches are to the north of the island: Jurerê Internacional, Casnavieiras and Ingleses. It’s the region of circular rich people. Jurerê Internacional is reminiscent of Beverly Hills, with lots of chic houses and nightclubs for cool people. We walked along the beach in the late afternoon, it is very beautiful. They say that in high season it gets super crowded with horrible traffic jams and a lot of rich/famous people – I don’t know about you, I thought it was cool to meet, but I preferred the calm in Barra da Lagoa.
A worthwhile trip in the Jurerê region is to visit Forte São José da Ponta Grossa, which is located on top of a hill close to Praia do Forte, in Jurerê. The place was built in 1740 as a defense for the city and was deactivated in 1935. It is still very well preserved and is great for both those who love history and those who want to see a beautiful view of Floripa. In the city there are five other Fortresses, which were part of the island’s defense system.
After talking so much about the beach, where Florianópolis feels more like a “city” is in the center, in the west of the Island. There, the place to visit is the Public Market. Inside and out, the market is a pleasant place to have a beer and eat the famous cod cake or the typical dish of the region: shrimp sequence. The price, of course, is a little higher – especially if you go to the traditional Box32. But as the atmosphere is pleasant, even if you don’t like spending, like us, we sat down and had a beer (then we went to the cheapest bar outside, lol).
In this region there is also the Metropolitan Cathedral of Florianópolis, the Cruz e Sousa Palace, the former State Government palace, which today has become a historical museum. More or less close enough to take photos is the Hercílio Luz bridge, which connects the island to the mainland.
As we only had two days in the city, on the first day we went to see the center, the Casnavieiras and Jurerê region, and also the São José da Ponta Grossa Fort. We had dinner at one of the restaurants on the edge of the lagoon and it was really nice. For the next day, we plan to stay on Barra das Lagoas beach and in the afternoon go see Praia Mole or go boating from Lagoa da Conceição. However, the plan to leave the shadow stage and have a cold beer completely failed and we ended up spending the day pleasantly by the sea.
