When Gerry was considering where to spend a month in Brazil he looked for somewhere just the right size that would showcase Brazil’s beauty and had a nice beach. He chose Florianópolis. Mhairi agreed, but only because she thought it sounded like a city in a Disney cartoon. Strictly speaking, Florianopolis is the big city straddling the two bridges linking the island we were staying on, Ilha de Santa Catarina, to the mainland of South East Brazil. It’s a big island, about the size of Arran, with lush green jungle-covered hills and lagoons that are perfect for hikers and nature lovers. It’s main draw though? The beaches.
We’d had a rough few months that had been full–on busy, albeit with a cheeky wee three and a half week cruise and a week in Spain at Christmas, and we really needed to hit the reset button and recharge our batteries. This was definitely the right place to do so. Our accommodation was a beautiful apartment in a complex that appeared to be a mixture of holiday villas and permanent family homes. We had a large pool, gym, sauna and spa, games rooms, and a high-tech 24-hour mini supermarket that was completely self-service. That’s right, there was no staff on site but the door wouldn’t open to let you leave the shop until you had paid! But the pièce de résistance was our beach.
To access the beach you follow a wooden boardwalk that snakes through what can only be described as jungle. The canopy keeps the majority of the walk shaded, which we really appreciated, and it opens up to a wooden gate directly on to the beach.
The apartment came with Optimus Prime’s wee brother, a wheeled contraption that carried deckchairs and umbrellas and then conveniently turned into a table complete with drinks holders. Bliss!
There were loads of exotic (to us) birds flying around and we even saw a whole family of marmosets. And very cute they were too. We were tickled that everybody left their sandals just lying on the boardwalk before heading on to the sand and not to feel left out, we joined in.
The beach is a surfer’s paradise and we never once saw it without magnificent waves crashing to the shore. We always say that we love swimming in the sea, and that is true, but there was no swimming here. Each time we went into the water it was more like an endurance test as the waves tried, and often succeeded to knock us to our feet. Not as bad as OBX and about on par with Da Nang. IYKYK. We were in our element. THIS is what retirement is all about.
The complex we were staying in was super modern. We had provided recent photos of ourselves before arriving and access to everything was by facial recognition. This was handy when you had your hands full of shopping or beach equipment, although the screen to access our actual apartment block seemed to be somewhat heightist. Mhairi had to stand on her tiptoes to get it to even acknowledge that she was there and even then, usually blanked her. The height problem carried on into the apartment. There was no way Mhairi could safely use the microwave. It was a bit of a struggle even for Gerry!
We had arranged to pay for our apartment on arrival and we assumed that would be through bank transfer or PayPal. Unfortunately, Brazilian banks only accept transfers in their own currency and none of our banks could pay out in Brazilian Reais. This left cash as the only option. We thought we were ok because we had opened a Western Union account in Argentina and could transfer the almost 14,000 BRL and collect from a local Western Union. It turns out that you can only withdraw a maximum of 10,000 BRL within any 30 day period. It is the same limit if you want to bring BRL into Brazil. We finally got it sorted a few days later by withdrawing 7,000 BRL each but it was touch and go for a while. We were terrified that we would be thrown out of our apartment, but the landlord was very understanding.
Because we were staying in a holiday area there were quite a few restaurants around and we did eat out a bit more than we normally would. Who wouldn’t when you could get delicious fillet steaks with 4 sides and 2 very large beers for less than £30. Gerry likes to cook (or so he tells Mhairi) and we usually do a few big shops and cook at home. The only problem we came across was the lack of variety in meats in the supermarkets. Don’t get us wrong, if you wanted a cut of beef there were literally wall to wall options. We had no idea there were so many variants of beef. But we decided that we couldn’t do it the same justice as the local grills in restaurants, so any time we wanted beef we ate out. There was limited, although excellent quality, pork and if we were very lucky we could get fresh chicken.
Like most things, the meats in the supermarkets were very reasonable. The drink was cheap too. The most Mhairi had to pay for a litre of Smirnoff was £6. It’s really going to hurt when we get back to Scotland’s minimum pricing where the exact same bottle costs £24.38!
We went into Florianópolis city a couple of times and it is a lovely place. It has a pretty cathedral in the main square, Praca XV Novembro, with quite a name to live up to – Catedral Metropolitana de Florianópolis Nossa Senhora Do Desterro e Santa Catarina De Alexandria. Phew!
The square itself was also quite something. Although Lent had just started, Jesus was clearly getting ready for Easter and his rabbit helpers, including some of the lesser known astronaut variety, were on hand to assist.
In the middle of the square is a truly magnificent fig tree which is one of the city’s historical symbols. It began life in 1871 and is still going strong in 2026. Very impressive, although the LED tulip lights just might be a more recent addition!
As mentioned, we had decided to take a proper break and charge our wee depleted batteries. What better way to do this than lounging on the sofa watching sports? We had a couple of nail-biting Glasgow derbies to endure, although Celtic did eventually win one of those after 120 tense minutes and an even tenser penalty shoot out. The T20 Cricket World Cup was on in India and Sri Lanka and we thoroughly enjoyed the many many matches we watched. T20 is such a spectacle and no better hosts than India and Sri Lanka. The crowds there are mad for it and their passion for the game and love of life in general are very apparent.
We are off to Rio de Janeiro next where the pace will be frantic and we’ll be glad that we took time to rest.
It's a wanderful life, so it is 
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