Paraty Travel Guide: A Colonial Gem Between São Paulo and Rio

Paraty Travel Guide

Paraty

We got off the bus and said: this is Ayvalık! Turns out it’s Paraty, Ayvalık’s long-lost twin(!). Right, let’s get on with it.

On our way from São Paulo to Rio de Janeiro we wanted to see Paraty, so we stopped here for three days. Paraty is a colonial town founded by the Portuguese in the 1600s and is on the UNESCO World Heritage list (together with the nearby Ilha Grande). It sits roughly halfway between Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. The bus from São Paulo to Paraty takes about 6 hours and a one-way ticket was around 60 reais. (Did we mention how expensive Brazil is?) But Brazilian buses have one great feature: the seats recline almost like beds! So we, who can never sleep on the road, even had dreams this time. 🙂

Extra and unnecessary info: even though the distance from São Paulo to Rio de Janeiro is almost double, that bus also takes about 6 hours, because it takes the other, faster motorway. Anyway 🙂

We warmed to Paraty the moment we arrived, and the bad feeling São Paulo had left us with disappeared immediately. We could finally breathe!

Paraty’s cobblestone streets near the sea, closed to traffic and full of little bars and cafés, are what make it so much fun. We stayed at Pousada Solar D’Alcina, very close to these streets, and loved it. It isn’t a big or luxurious hotel, but the sea views from the rooms were beautiful. We paid 60 USD per room per night including breakfast.

Life in Paraty revolves around this cobblestoned historic centre. Brazil’s national spirit is cachaça, and Paraty is one of its traditional homes. Naturally, the national cocktail made with cachaça, the caipirinha, is the most popular drink in Paraty. In every bar you’ll see people drinking countless caipirinhas; don’t be shy, join in, we loved them! One nice thing about Brazil is that if you don’t feel like sitting in a bar, you can grab a cocktail from the nearest place and sit down in the nearest square. On all three nights in Paraty we spent part of our time in the squares listening to street musicians. Brazilians love having fun, and seeing them enjoy themselves, you naturally start enjoying yourself too!

If you’ve come all the way to Paraty and want to eat really well at a nice Brazilian restaurant, we send our regards to Restaurante La Luna. If you want to go back to your hotel with a full stomach and a lighter wallet, this is the place. (That’s what happened to us.) 🙂

Paraty’s other café-bar area is, naturally, the waterfront. It’s cheaper than the cobblestone area and more “chill”, so to speak. Everyone’s playing music from their phones and it’s full of young people drinking beer. We liked this part too.

Finally, right at the bus station where the buses drop you off, there’s an İstanbul Restaurant. Even though we thought “seriously, here too!?”, curiosity got the better of us and of course we went in to eat. The owner, Okan, bought a one-way ticket 10 years earlier to travel around South America and ended up in Paraty. He married a Brazilian here and opened this place! While eating our köfte we chatted with the other Turkish customers and compared travel plans. Everyone has their own Brazil route, and then we went our separate ways 🙂 If you end up in this little town, İstanbul Restaurant can be a nice stop for köfte and a chat.

Paraty’s must-do: the boat tour

Unfortunately the sea right in Paraty isn’t clean enough for swimming, but boat tours leave Paraty for gorgeous bays. You’ll find tour agencies everywhere as you walk around town, so there’s no need to book in advance. 🙂 There are two versions of these boat tours: with live music and without. Without knowing, we picked the live music one. We thought we’d relax, but instead we listened to a shrill guitarist all day. You might want to pick the one without music!

The boat tour starts around 11 am and usually lasts until 5 pm. With some good bargaining we got it for 40 reais per person back then 🙂 We hadn’t realised how beautiful Paraty was until that moment. As the boat left the shore and the incredible views began, we said: yes, we’ve come to the right place, where else would we swim if not in Brazil?

We said there’s a huge gap between rich and poor in Brazil. We saw it again on the boat tour. Some of the islands we passed are private islands with a single owner: a huge mansion in the middle and a boat moored in front. Apparently they fly into the airport near Paraty on their private planes and come over here.

On our boat tour we stopped at four places, each more beautiful than the last. At one of them, where the forest meets the sea, monkeys were coming down to the water 🙂 So if you’ve made it to Paraty, we recommend letting loose on a boat tour!

We spent our three days in Paraty doing one boat tour and two days wandering between cafés and squares, recharging for Rio de Janeiro. In our minds Paraty stayed a beautiful cobblestone town and a perfect place to take a break.

We hope this lovely town treats you well too. Greetings in advance to everyone heading to Paraty 🙂

Our next stop was Rio de Janeiro. If you’re starting your trip in São Paulo, see our São Paulo travel guide.

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Lots of love!