Paraty
Paraty And Ilha Grande Culture And Biodiversity, UNESCO World Heritage Site Inscribed 2019 · Paraty, Rio de Janeiro
Paraty is a small colonial port on the coast between Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, where the forested mountains of the Serra do Mar come straight down to a bay full of islands. In the eighteenth century gold from Minas Gerais came down the old road to Paraty to be shipped to Portugal; when a new road bypassed it, the town was left almost untouched for a century. Its historic centre is a grid of whitewashed houses with painted doors and windows, white churches and big, irregular stones in the streets, which are closed to cars. The streets were built to let high tides wash in, and on some full moons they still flood. Paraty is also the gateway to the bay: schooner trips run to islands and beaches, and the coast north and south hides waterfalls in the forest, cachaça distilleries and fishing villages like Trindade. UNESCO listed the town together with Ilha Grande and the surrounding forest in 2019. It hosts a famous literary festival, FLIP. It is busy on weekends and holidays, and beautiful at any time.
Centro Histórico, Paraty, RJ, Paraty, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
A town, always open, and the historic centre is closed to cars at all times, so plan to park outside it and walk in with luggage over large stones. Schooner and boat trips leave the pier in the morning and return in the afternoon, and they are cancelled or shortened in bad weather or strong wind - keep a spare day. Churches and the small museums open for limited daytime hours and some close one day a week - confirm. Shops and restaurants in the centre stay open into the evening, which is when the town looks best. Weekends and holidays bring day-trippers and packed boats; midweek is far calmer. FLIP, the literary festival, usually falls in the second half of the year and fills every room in town, as do New Year and Carnival, so book months ahead for those dates. The highest spring tides can flood the lowest streets for a few hours.