Paraty is the town gold built and time politely forgot to modernise. The centre is a UNESCO-listed grid of white-washed colonial houses and boat-ropes of blue painted around every door. Around it: a bay (Saco de Mamanguá) with a hundred islands, a national park (Serra da Bocaina) climbing into the mist, and a coast road between Rio and São Paulo that is, objectively, one of the most beautiful drives on the continent. Four hours from ADV 001 — we consider it a day trip for the bold, and a two-night stay for the wise.
How to arrive
By car
Four hours on the BR-101 south. The last hour is the best hour — you skirt Angra dos Reis, the ocean arrives on your right, and the road carves through rainforest for sixty kilometres. Leave at 7 a.m.; stop at Mambucaba for a pastel de camarão on the way down.
By speedboat
A four-hour passage from Marina da Glória, with one long beach lunch stop at Ilha Grande. For groups of six or fewer, our favourite way.
In the old town
Leave the car at the edge of the Centro Histórico (which is pedestrian, not by rule but by geography — the cobbles are jagged enough to ruin a rim) and walk. The grid is small, thirteen streets by ten. Stop at the Casa da Cultura, the Igreja de Santa Rita, and the square at the waterfront where the fishing boats come in around 4 p.m.
Where to eat in town
- Banana da Terra. Chef Ana Bueno's Atlantic-coast cooking — grilled fish, moqueca, and the best caipirinha of cachaça de gabiroba in the state.
- Casa do Fogo. Paraty's flambé specialist, intimate, candle-lit, fine for a long dinner if you're staying over.
- Quintal das Letras. Lighter, modern — carpaccios and the fresh catch with a glass of Brazilian white.
On the water
The schooner tours that leave at 10 a.m. visit four or five of the bay's islands — Ilha Comprida, Ilha da Cotia, Praia Vermelha, Lagoa Azul. The water is clearer than you've been promised; the mid-morning swim is the day's best. For private hire, we book a smaller lancha — a captain, a cooler, six chairs, and the route of your own choosing.
The cachaça trail
Paraty was the town where colonial Brazil distilled its rum, and the old distilleries — alambiques — still work the hills above the bay. The three to visit:
- Engenho d'Ouro. The classiest tasting, small bottles, good barrel-aged.
- Maria Izabel. The prettiest setting, river running past the still; buy a gold-aged cachaça.
- Pedra Branca. A working distillery with a rough bar and an excellent lunch if you're making a day of it.
"Paraty is the Brazilian town that remembers. The walls are the same, the water is the same, and the second caipirinha always arrives unrequested — which it should."
Waterfalls & forest
If you have time, and it's dry: Cachoeira do Tobogã (a natural rock slide in the forest, riotously fun), Poço do Tarzan (a swimming hole with a rope swing), and the Trindade beaches south of town — particularly Praia do Cachadaço, which requires a 20-minute trail and rewards you with a pocket beach that looks CGI.
Staying over — if you decide to
Paraty deserves more than a day. If you'd like to, we can arrange a night at Casa Turquesa (nine rooms, a courtyard pool, colonial in the grand sense) or at Pousada Literária (a writers' inn founded around the town's literary festival). A single message to the concierge arranges the drive down, the boat day, the dinner, and the return.
Paraty is the gentlest day-trip in the Rio orbit. If you have one spare day of your stay, this is the one to spend.