11-day Boat & Road Trip On The Green Coast Of Rio De Janeiro

11 Days

Paraty is a small town backed by mountains on Brazil’s Costa Verde, between Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Its Portuguese colonial center has cobbled streets and 17th- and 18th-century buildings dating back to its time as a port, during the Brazilian Gold Rush. Among its architectural landmarks is the waterfront Capela de Santa Rita, a whitewashed church built in 1722. Once Brazil’s primary port during the era of the Portuguese empire, Paraty marked the final destination of the Estrada Real that snaked down from Minas Gerais: a money trail of gold, diamonds and coffee on its way to Europe. In a bid for greater efficiency, the route was then changed to Rio and Paraty slipped off the radar. Accessible only by boat and surrounded by thick tropical forest, the small fisherman’s colony was left to its own devices amongst the colonial mansions and cobbled streets until the Rio-Santos road was built in the 1970s and put it back on the map. After the first trickle of visitors from Sao Paulo arrived to rent rooms in fisherman’s houses, word quickly caught on about the perfectly preserved colonial streets and abundant natural beauty and Brazilian captains of industry were soon staking out their spots on the 63 virgin islands that stretch along the coast to Angra.