In the summer or winter escaping from the city for a weekend is easy, there are lots of options in the surrounding country within a couple of hours drive. Gramado is a touristy town about 2 hours from PoA. Gramado is a Germanic settled town and plays on that for the tourism, the arquitecture reflects this with alpine style hotels and chalets. In the winter there is sometimes an inch or two of snow and you can eat fondue at any one of the specialized restaurants.

The surrounding countryside of Gramado has some spectacular scenery. Forests, canyons and mountain trails leading to waterfalls and pools where you can take a dip.

In the summer everyone goes to the beaches. There are beaches within an hour to three hours from PoA but they're not very good. The best beaches are up in the next state of Santa Catarina, and the island of Florianópolis, about 6 hours drive from PoA.

Beginning in March 2007 and going right up until December, Copesul petrochemical company, are sponsoring a series of cultural lectures by leading thinkers of the world. Click here for the homepage, it's in Portuguese but you can get an idea of the dates and people, click on "conferensistas" for the people and "programação completa" for the dates. The lectures are being held at the Federal University or the Catholic University every Tuesday.
A lot of the lecturers are from Britain and the States, there are many others from other countries so I guess the common language will be English except perhaps when the lecturer is Brazilian or from a Spanish speaking country.

Leave a message for me with your e-mail if you require any further info in English.

Services I can provide include:

• Pick up from the airport or central bus station or guide into the city from the freeway;
• Hotel / hostel booking according to requirements;
• Short city tours and / or longer excursions to mountain or beach regions;
• Accompany / interpret for business or social meetings in the city or nearby;
• Translations and "Portuguese-for-getting-around" classes.

Click on "Leave a comment here" for further details and prices, make sure to leave your e-mail address.

Compared with all the goings on in Rio and São Paulo, PoA is a quiet place. I cannot deny though that it can be dangerous according to the place, time and situation.

The city centre at night is not a very safe place to be unless you stick around the southern end where the Casa de Cultura Mario Quintana Cultural Centre is, as lots of people hang around there, it's not dangerous. In fact the only reason why the centre is dangerous is because nobody goes out there, and nobody goes out there because...guess what? Yes, it's dangerous! A kind of viscious circle.

Even during the day you have to keep your wits about you in the city centre, DO NOT put bags, rucksacks or equipment on a table and turn your back for a moment, an urchin is most definately waiting for such an opportunity and will be off with your stuff before you can "Artful Dodger!" A friend of mine had his shopping bags whipped away (full of expensive cheeses and wines) when he put them down to make a quick phone call on a public phone (before the days of mobiles). I guess there was a cheese and wine party under the bridge that night. Another girl I know had her backpack swiped from a table in the Public Market, she ran screaming after the urchin much to the amusement of many a passer-by, the urchin opened up and emptied the bag on the run, stuff falling everywhere, she had to pause to pick it up and he got away with money and camera.

Morro Santana is a nice place to go for a great view of all the city, BUT again, I've heard so many stories of people getting mugged up there.

Obvious places NOT to go into are the favelas, and the shanty town areas, the biggest of these is Vila Cruzeiro, some of the buses run through this area so it's unavoidable, but by bus it's okay, just make sure you get off at the right stop that you want.

Quite a bit goes on here without a lot of people realizing it.

Uhm, I'll start off with Porto Alegre em Cena, the annual theatre festival which is held in September. Tickets are cheap, on price about 2 pounds sterling, but they tend to go very fast. The plays are shown at theatres, cultural centres or even in the streets. Em Cena usually has a mixture of national and international theatre companies, including Europe and Britain and has a very high standard of professional or amateur actors preforming all manner of the theatrical arts.

Feira do Livro, the annual Book Fair runs over three weeks in November in Praça da Alfandega spreading over to the port right in the city centre. This is an excellent opportunity to sit in the beer tent and recite Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner" while quaffing a few cold beers. You get some funny looks (I know from experience). Seriously though, the book fair is a very special literary occassion attracting authors and critics from all over Brazil and sometimes abroad. A few years ago I met and obtained a signed copy from Gilbert Shelton, the author/cartoonist of "The Freak Brothers" comic books (you see, great literary classics!). Most of the book stores and publishers of PoA set up a stand and the books can be bought for bargain prices. I bought a few very good novels in English there over the years at a very cheap price (normally, imported paperbacks are expensive). It's a great event for people watching also as most of the population of PoA, of all social classes attend at sometime during the event. Book launches and autograph sessions are daily, I'll be there next year I hope with my "Contos Folclóricos de País de Gales". The only downer I find is that there is one bar that has the monopoly on selling beer at the beer tent (which has lots of different food bars), therefore you only have one choice of beer (and it's one of the crappy commercial beers) and at their fixed (inflated) prices.

Semana Farroupilha, or Farroupilha week is actually about three weeks in September culminating in the Gaúcho horse parade on the 20th Sept. This is a celebration of the Farroupilha Revolution, the Gaúchos set up a huge encampment in Parque Harmonia (Maurício Sirotsky), they construct a mini town consisting of wooden huts, called "Piquets", all joined to form streets , each piquet is owned either privately, by a family or group of friends, or by a company. Some are very simple piquets and others much more elaborate. The piquets are basically for barbecues and partying. The public can wander around and sometimes get invited to the piquets. There are lots of food and drink stalls and a market with Gaúcho and touristy products. If it rains it can get rather muddy with the passing of many people and horses.

For Travellers, Poa is a convenient stop off point to the rest of South America, lots of people come through here by some means or another on their way to Terra del Fuego, the end of the world. A few years ago Dave Barr, the motorcycle traveller stayed at my house a couple of days on his way through (I'm in his book "Riding the Edge", beginning of Chapter 26, 'cept he spelt my name wrong!). If you're coming by motorcycle, PoA has a great bar with contacts for places to stay, contact me for info about this.

By road, motorbike or otherwise: From Rio de Janeiro or São Paulo the road is a little under a thousand miles, you need to follow the BR101 or the BR116. The 101 follows the coast down so if you're not in a rush you can stop off at various beach resorts on the way. A nice stop off point around about half way is Florianópolis, which is an island with some wonderful beaches. From Osório you then take the BR290 for the last 60 miles or so to Porto Alegre. The roads have tolls and you'll go through about ten tolls gates, depending on your route, with a total cost of about 12 UK pounds sterling

Backpacking: any major airport within Brazil has domestic flights to PoA. from Rio and São Paulo the flight is about 1 hour and a half. Only a little cheaper is by coach, there are direct coaches from Rio and São Paulo, the coach trip takes about 24 hours from Rio and 22 hours from SP. From further afield you'll have to change in one of the bigger cities. The coaches are fairly comfortable with air condish and loos and they stop every couple of hours or so. I say only a little cheaper because there are now an increasing number of discount airlines that offer good prices especially on night flights, it's well worth paying just a little more and cutting hours of an otherwise long boring trip.
There's no major rail network in Brazil.

Once in the city getting around is fairly easy. There's a pretty good bus service, the buses have a unique price and run to and fro all the neighbourhoods. There are some air condish buses but most are regular and can get pretty hot and crowded at rush hour. An alternative is the "Lotação" these are red mini-buses, no standing so you'll always get a seat (if they're full, they won't pick up) and they're air-conditioned, and you can hail them from any point in the road, they are about twice the price of the buses: Buses about 45p and lotação about 90p to a quid.

If you are by motorcycle or even car: Beware the PoA driver! They don't use their indicators too often, they think they should always be ahead of you so if YOU use your indicators to pull out into a road or out of a parking space or to over-take, they WILL NOT let you in, they do in fact increase their speed a little in order that you absolutely cannot get in. Quite frequently they accelarate to pass a changing traffic light. If you are at a red light do not simple wait until it's green before moving but check that there's no car trying to fly through. Late at night they normally don't stop at red lights (there's risk of getting the car-jacked) so check before you go ahead

CAIPIRINHA and CACHAÇA. Not exclusively a Gaúcho custom but very common to find around here, you know, one of those things that the locals will always ask, "Have you tried.... yet?" . Cachaça is cane brandy and like any distilled drink comes in very rough to very refined forms. I usually go by the price, from about 50p for a liter bottle to, and I've seen - about 100 pounds sterling for a 500ml bottle, must be the best stuff that. The public market has a good cachaça store upstairs where you can find all these varieties and other paraphernalia. Some restaurants or bars will offer you a small shot on the house. Caipirinha is a cocktail made with cachaça, crushed lemons (which remain in the glass), sugar and ice. Like the chimarrão, it's a social thing at churrascos (sorry, this is not meant to be a tongue-twister! and by coincidence, everything so far begins with 'c', I'm working on 'a' and 'b' then maybe some other letters of the alphabet), someone will have made a large caipirinha and it'll be passed around for everyone to share

BARS

PoA has a distinct class structure which can be clearly seen in the types of bar and the areas where these bars are.
Your "working class" bars, known as botecos can be found all over the city but not in most of the higher class residential areas. They are frequented by the locals of the neighbourhood, those being normally the working class. Understand that by "working class" in Brazil is a lot poorer than the "working class" standard of Britain. These people cannot afford "luxuries" that we normally take for granted. Some of the better botecos can be found in the city centre, they have a longer tradition and are frequented by the office workers at happy hour. These botecos normally serve a good choppe, but are not recommended to hang around later at night.
NIGHT LIFE bars are spread around three main areas: Avenida Goethe, Moinhos de Vento and Cidade Baixa.
Avenida Goethe a mile long stretch from Parcão to almost Avenida Ipiranga, has lots of bars and a few dance clubs. Goethe was really in fashion around 10 years ago but now has lost most of its appeal though it still attracts mostly the younger people on the "hunt", i.e. it's a great place for the young to find partners or just to have fun.
Moinhos de Vento is an upper class neighbourhood and this can clearly be seen in the bars and restaurants, mostly concentrated in Ruas Fernando Gomes and Padre Chagas, also known as the "side walk of fame" because it's where you can spot the rich and famous of PoA on their nights out. The bars here are very good but mostly over priced and there really is a snobbish tendency where you are judged by your clothes and car. There are two bars here with Draught Guinness, (I'm not going to put the names unless they pay me lots of money to put a link here!). One of which is a supposed "Irish Pub" but it's more like a Hollywood movie set of an Irish Pub, everything seems too fake and plastic. I went there once and asked it they have any Irish music. "Well, we've got U2" came the reply. DUH.
Probably the best place for bars is Cidade Baixa, about 15 mins walk from the city centre. The many streets here are full of small bars, cafés and bistros. Cidade Baixa attracts the "alternative" crowd of PoA. Students, intellectuals, TRAVELLERS!. Young and old.
A special mention must go to The Shamrock Irish Pub, your host, Simon a good friend of mine (I did say these pages were personal and reflect MY opinions!), has a great place, 3 floors: bottom floor is pubby, i.e. closed in, wooden tables and bar with DRAUGHT GUINNESS! Second floor has pool and darts and third floor is small, cosy and has a terrace for cool nights. The music is good mostly Brit rock pop and sometimes Simon can be persuaded to play Irish Music! Simon's from Belfast actually, so this can be considered a REAL Irish Pub! The food is EXCELLENT, on the menu you can find fish 'n' chips and a kind of spicy cumberland sausage. All ages frequent the Shamrock too and lots of foreigners and travellers can be found on most nights there.
The Shamrock is very near Redenção park.

BEER

The beer you'll find in the bars of PoA is mostly bottled light lager beer with an alcohol content of between 4-5%. The Brazilians like beer ICE cold, in some cases it freezes in the bottle! The word for bottled beer is cerveja as opposed to choppe which is draught lager beer. Something to take care of is, again it's a custom here, Brazilians like choppe with a lot of head, called colarinho, and the bars serve with perhaps 3 or 4 inches of foam which, if it's a tapered glass, uses up half the content. To avoid this you have to ask for "muito pouco colarinho", or very little foam.
In the Winter here they start to produce dark beers, bocks or cerveja escura. Something I can never understand is that they make a great advertizing for these dark beers for the Winter yet they still serve it ice cold!
The past few years or so has seen the emergence of more micro-brewery beers, you can find them in the supermarkets, which produce British type ale or German weissbeirs. These beers are very good but tend to be a little more expensive than the regular beers. A few bars have these beers on draught.
Very few bars in PoA (I think 3 at my last count) have draught Guinness.
Supermarkets stock beer in 350ml cans or 350ml bottles known as "long necks" (yes in English, is that an American thing?) or 600ml bottles, these you have to take empties in order to exchange for "fulls". Depending on the beer, supermarket prices vary from 25p - 50p for the cans or longnecks and 40p - 60p for the 600ml's.
Bars serve longnecks, 600ml's or choppe. Again bar prices vary: 50p - 80p for a longneck; 80p - 1.00 (pound sterling) for a 600ml; 50p - 80p for a 300ml glass of choppe (that's just over half pint), and around 1.00 pound sterling for a 500ml choppe, just under a pint.

CULTURE AND CUSTOMS


The people of PoA are known as Gaúchos the beef herding pampas cowboys. Of course they're not all like that, the real Gaúcho does exist here however!
Most of the population of PoA are of mixed race, there are a lot of decendents of German, Italian and Polish immigrants so there is a European flavour that has embraced the Gaúcho culture.

Gaúcho stuff:

churrasco: barbecue. Most Gaúcho homes have a brick barbecue pit with a chimney. Even the modern flats have them on the balconies. Churrasco is not the lamb chops, grisly sausage and hamburger stuff we have in UK. Churrasco is delicious chunks of red meat skewered on yard long spits and roasted high over the charcoal for the fat to slowly drip through. Beef is very cheap, a 2.2lb (or 1kg) chunk of prime cut sirloin is about 1.50 pounds sterling and the cuts are varied and each as delicious as the other. The best cut people go for is picanha, the equivalent of rump steak. The sausages are fat and not grisly. Chicken hearts, about 30 to a spit flavoured with garlic and rock salt, are YUMMY!
A churrasco is not just a meal, it's a social and family gathering, with a few beers a good churrasco will go on over a few hours.
The churrasco is the families' normal Sunday lunch at home or a lot of people go to churrascarias, the barbecue restaurants. A lot of these are espeto corrido, literally, "running spit", which means, for one price, you just keep getting served until you shout "help!" or "I SURRENDER!". A lot of these places have a reversible sign at your table place, on one side it says "No Thanks, maybe later" on the other it says, "Yes Please", this way you don't have to keep calling the espeto corrido over or sending him away, he just keeps an eye on your sign. Churrascarias vary in price from about 2 pounds sterling to about 5 pounds sterling not including drinks.

chimarrão, most Gaúchos drink this green herb tea mixture. It's drunk from a hollowed gourd, known as a cuia through a metal straw. The chimarrão is continually topped up with hot water from a vacuum flask and passed around, it's a social drink. The Gaúchos take their chimarrão with them wherever they go. It's quite normal to see people strolling in the parks with the cuia in one hand and the flask in the other. It has a bitter herby taste and is quite pleasant but needs getting used to.

SUNSET

PoA has a very beautiful sunset which can be observed from several points along the river front. One of the best places is the neighbourhood of Ipanema to the south of the city, about 8 miles from the centre. There's a promenade for walking and lots of bars on the riverfront to watch the sunset from.

Alternatively there's the Parque Marinha, take a deck chair and cool box! Or the Gasômetro or floating bar.

Incidently the terrace of my flat has a wonderful sunset view (small photo on main blog page), travellers are welcome for a churrasco and cold beer (for a small fee of course, well it's what Ronnie Biggs used to do! Okay so I'm not an internationally famed train robber, but I need to earn some dosh somehow)

Aside from the parks and bars there's loads to do and see in PoA. I'll start with the city centre. The Public Market, Mercado Público, is well worth a visit. The 19th century building encloses a courtyard, recently roofed, containing several stalls which sell everything from herbs and spices, fish and meat, cheeses and wines to local offerings for umbanda ceremonies. The upstairs area has bars and restaurants, good for a choppe which is cold draught lager. Unfortunately, like all the city centre area, it is dangerous at night and therefore closes early (9pm) and no one hangs around. Even during the day you have to be careful around the city centre, don't leave your bag or camera on a table unattended, don't even turn around for a moment, keep your stuff close. There are street urchins always on the lookout for careless people, and they're very fast on their feet!
Just across the square from the Public Market is the Chalet Bar, there is a good open air patio and an upstairs terrace and they serve good food and choppe.
Rua dos Andradas, popularly known as Rua da Praia (yes, doesn't everything seem to have two names, an official name and a popular name!), is the main shopping street, crowded and hot, right in the centre there's Praça da Alfandega, where the annual book fair is held and further down there is Casa de Cultura Mario Quintana. The remodelled Hotel Majestic, CCMQ has lots of art and cultural events, with a great café on the top floor and an equally good one on the ground floor in the hotel arches alleyway between two streets.
From the docks right in the city centre a boat trip on the Cisne Branco is great, it takes about an hour and goes through the channels between the estuary islands, costs R$10 (Brazilian Reals) per person, that's about 2 pounds sterling. The contrast between the rich and the poor here is incredible to see. Look on one side and you'll see an beautiful mansion with extensive lawns stretching down to the river where there is usually a jet ski and launch tied up at a dock. Look over the other side, just 20 yards or so, and there's a delapitated wooden shack, half a dozen brown naked kids hanging around and piles of garbage where the people have collected and dumped to sort for anything recyclable (they get a meagre earning with that).
A 15 min walk from the city centre will bring you to the Gasômetro, the old power station, now restored and used for cultural events. All along the dock area from the centre to the Gasômetro are the disused quays, there is a plan to convert it all to culture area, but that plan has been on hold for years. Another boat trip goes from the Gasômetro, a little cheaper than the Cisne Branco. There is also a "floating bar" here, a kind of large two-decked platform with a bar but unfortunately it's not very well looked after and of very poor quality. It's not bad for drinking a cold beer and watching the sun-set though.

PARKS

Redenção, officially Parque Farroupilha, is very beautiful for walking, it's shady and large enough to stroll around for a few hours. There are also wide open spaces for sports such as frizby throwing and TACO (street cricket), or you can just laze around on deck chairs (take-yer-own) in the sun or shade. Redenção has a large lake full of turtles and you can rent paddle boats. On the lake there's also a very nice café bar, Café do Lago with a shaded deck and live music. On Saturdays and Sundays there is an open market, feira, on Avenida José Bonefácio the road bordering one side of the park. On Saturdays it's for organic fruits and veggies and on Sundays it's for arts and crafts and antiques, the Sunday market is known as the brique. Both days are very popular with the locals who come out strolling and to drink a chimarrão with friends or family.

Parcão, is less shaded and smaller, lots of people excersise here, good for jogging and walking. There's a large open playground for kids but can be too hot during the Summer due to lack of shade. There's also a turtle lake here with a mini-windmill structure on a small island (it's in Moinhos de Vento neighbourhood, which means "windmills")

Parque Marinha and Maurício Sirotsky (aka Parque Harmonia), very large area extending along the riverfront to almost the city centre, Marinha blends into MS. Marinha has a skate park, long lawns and a great riverside promenade walk with about a 4 mile extension from the Ibere Camargo Museum to the Gasómetro. MS has shaded barbecue pits and a huge traditional barbecue restaurant, Galpão Creolo. Parque MS is the venue for the annual Gaúcho Semana Farroupilha Camp.

Asside from these three main parks, each neighbourhood has its own praçinhas smaller shaded parks for walking or just relaxing.

Mon 9th April: 22c cloudy
Tues 10th April: 27c partially cloudy
Weds 11th April: 29c sunny

Sunny and warm for a few days

PoA is situated in the far south of Brazil (see map) in the state of Rio Grande do Sul the southernmost state. The countryside around is mostly pampas grasslands, hence the Gaúcho culture shared with Uruguay and Argentina. The city itself is on the shores of what is known as the Guaíba River, sometimes known as a lake, there's some debate as to what it exactly is, if you check the map it could be described in fact as an estuary which opens out into a much larger lake known as Lagoa dos Patos. So "Porto" in PoA is not a sea port but it is accessable by sea to large vessels via Lagoa dos Patos which opens to the sea through a narrow channel about 150 miles to the south.
Including Greater PoA the area covered is almost 200 sq miles with a population of a million and a half. The city itself consists of the old part, which is mostly the city centre, and residential neighbourhoods spread around. These neighbourhoods vary a lot in economic stature, from the very poorest of shanty towns to high class blocks each apartment which goes for perhaps quarter million Brit pounds sterling.
One thing with the housing that strikes me as different from Britain is that there are no large areas with all the houses the same, such as the British housing estates or terraced houses. If someone has enough money to buy a new house here, they normally buy the land and build the house according to their own specifications. There are lots of closed, secure, condominiums which have the houses all the same but it tends only to be about 10 - 20 small houses.
In some neighbourhoods (very few and getting less) the council have prohibited building more than 3 floors, so we find here only houses, these neighbourhoods can be found mostly to the south. Other regions have given way to mass high rise development and the houses have for the most part disappeared.
PoA has three large shopping centres, Iguatemi, Bourbon Country (these two being literally right next to each other) and Praia de Belas, and a variety of smaller shopping centres spread around. Under construction right now is Cristal Shopping, which reportedly when complete will be the biggest in Latin America.
There are also three large parks, Redenção, Parcão and Parque Marinha. The first of these has a dense covering of trees making it beautifully shady for walks, there is also a large lake full of turtles and rentable paddle boats. There's a nice bar on the lake to quaff cold beers while feeding the turtles. Parcão is less shady and smaller, it also has a turtle lake but no bar. Parcão is in a rich and fashionable neighbourhood, Moinhos de Vento, and the park is where the rich and fashionable people jog or walk around by the score, excersising or just showing of their imported nikes. The last of these parks follows the river/lake shoreline and extends almost to the city centre. Parque Marinha is wonderful for sunset walks along the river/lakeside promenade.
As I've mentioned, the city centre is the old part, there are a few historic buildings here including the public market, which dates back to 1869, and the Santa Casa Hospital founded in 1803.
The river / lake is extremely polluted due to the industries up river. There is a project to clean up but it will take a long time yet and I still see reports on the news of thousands of fish found dead floating caused by pollution of some factory or another, the factory is fined but then they just continue. Further from the city, about 18 miles the council have declared a beach clean enough to swim, Lami, I've seen the water there, it certainly doesn't look clean!