It is actually more of a coincidence that we are visiting Porto Alegre at all. When we booked the flight, we just thought, “that must be a nice route, from Rio de Janeiro to Porto Alegre”, and so it is. As our return flight is not until Saturday after midnight, we have 2 full days after our arrival on Thursday evening… However, we don’t really know what to do in Porto Alegre. There’s not enough time left for bigger activities and Porto Alegre doesn’t really have more than a day visit to offer. But that’s fine by us, as we can wind down Brazil a little more quietly, stroll around the city a bit, store for a few souvenirs and go out for a good meal.
We spend the first day doing just that, but the souvenir shopping only works to a limited extent. We finally find the “Jambu Cachaca” in the city’s market hall, but otherwise the souvenir shopping is a little poor. Even for Havaianas, where there used to be a store on every corner, we have to go to a shopping center just outside the city center. But we make the best of it and with the huge river delta of the Rio Guiaba, which first flows into Lake Patos and then into the sea, Porto Alegre is a really good place to be and we take a leisurely stroll through parks, eat acai and drink a beer on the lakeside while we watch the Brazilians playing soccer, tennis and beach soccer on the lakeside promenade.
We even stumble across a cheap sailing trip by chance and spontaneously book it for our last afternoon. But before it starts, we want to try one last typical Brazilian “lunch buffet” and even find a vegan grill restaurant that offers this. And we are very lucky. There must be some kind of special on Saturday, and there’s all-you-can-eat from the grill for just under €10!!! A member of staff is constantly coming around with large barbecue skewers and tempting us to try another new creation. Saitan in barbecue, mustard and honey sauce, various vegan sausage creations and even the Brazilian version of parmigiana… We can hardly walk afterwards… but we have 15 hours of airplane food ahead of us ^^
The sailing tour is very friendly and personally organized by Luciano, who gives us a short briefing on the most important manoeuvres and repeatedly asks us to lend a hand. Unfortunately, we have almost no wind and so we just sail back and forth on the river a few times. Afterwards, we are even invited to Luciano’s restaurant for home-brewed beer and discuss different types of beer with him and with his wife about the fun they had at the Oktoberfest, which they both attended last year
A really nice and personal end to our Brazilian experience!!!