Author: marionvermazen

We had a lovely breakfast delivered to our room this morning.

Before leaving we checked out the woodcarving work shop and bought a Christmas ornament.

As we have driven through southern Brazil we have seen lots of signs of the various nationalities of people who immigrated to Brazil. We have seen restaurants, memorials, architecture and stores as evidence of immigrants from Germany, Japan, Ukraine, Italy and others. But Treze Tílias is the first town we have seen that has really embraced their heritage and the fact that Austrian immigrants settled here. It reminds me of Leavenworth, Washington or Solvang, California. They even have an annual Tyrol festival. We explored a bit before leaving town.

Google took us on a gravel road for a few miles as we were leaving town. But it was a good gravel road! The countryside was gorgeous.

Tonight we are in the town of Pato Branco. Nobody at the hotel spoke English or Spanish but we have a nice room overlooking the main square.

For dinner we walked a few blocks down the Main Street to a place called Novo Thaberna. We got there about 7:30. About 8:00 it really got busy.

We have had a wide variety of weather in our first week of the trip. In São Paulo is was very hot and very humid. Last night and this morning in Urubici it felt cold. We sat by a fire and read last night. Then we snuggled under a big comforter to sleep.

We have had grey skies, mist, and torrential downpours as well as beautiful blue skies with lots of sun.

Yesterday at the grocery store we bought a big mango and a big papaya and some pastries. We had them for breakfast this morning.

In order to get from our car to our chalet and back again we had to go over a very bouncy suspension bridge. We survived and started down the road this morning about 9:15.

Today as we drove further west we left the mountains behind and drove through rolling hills with fields of wheat and lots of grain storage facilities.

The town of Treze Tílias where we are tonight had a lot of Austrian immigrants. Here is our room tonight at Hospedaria Pattis.

For dinner we walked to a restaurant about half a mile from where we are staying, Chef Haus Restaurante e Pizzaria. On the way we saw lots of evidence that this town has an Austrian heritage. We even saw dirdls and lederhosen in a shop window. For dinner we had pizza.

We really liked Pausada Ilha Faceira where we stayed last night. It wasn’t raining when we got up this morning so we could enjoy this nice view towards the beach from our balcony.

After a great breakfast we hit the road and headed inland. For most of the day we weren’t on the main road so we saw a lot fewer trucks and much less traffic. This was the view from the high point on the road.

Tonight we are staying in a wonderful cabana out in the country overlooking a river.

We went shopping for dinner before we left Florianópolis.