A Different World - Curitiba

It is official. When it comes to Brazilian cities, I love Curitiba!

I had only been there once before, for about 24hrs. This involved a quick shopping stop and one of those bus tours of the sites (which broke down and almost made us late for our flight). In addition, I was sorting through all the feelings of my commitment to live in Brazil.

Needless to say, I didn’t have such a wonderful trip. There was a lot of stress and not much time.
My husband and I celebrated our wedding anniversary this weekend and our gift to each other was a trip to Curitiba. We’ve wanted to go back for a while, but haven’t had the chance to together.

After living a year in Maringá and then visiting Curitiba, I was completely shocked by the night and day difference. It isn’t the size, it is the city itself.

I can’t count how many times I had this overwhelming feeling that I was not in Brazil at all. Curitiba has a strong European influence. From cafes to grocery stores there were many situations where I felt as though I were in Europe or even parts of D.C.

Maringá is well known for the amount of trees in the city, but Curitiba isn’t doing too badly either. They have amazing parks and many areas of greenspace. The most beautiful part is all the Araucaria trees. They are everywhere throughout the city.

Before our move here, I actually did a lot more research on Curitiba than I was able to do on Maringá. The original plan was that we would be living there, but things changed for several reasons before we made the move.

Curitiba has been noted for its public transportation system and city design. I won’t go into details. It is just a really interesting place filled with things to do and see.

We stayed in the Batel area which is the more upscale area of the city. Hotel prices here are really reasonable, but we definitely ruled out any nearby shopping - very boutique-like with the high prices that match that type of atmosphere. Window shopping was fun, though.

There are so many restaurant options in the area and I’ll do a separate post about our food choices. The best part is that these places were borderline authentic. It was so great!

I’m really tired of Brazilian food we have access to in Maringá – red meat, rice and French fries always seem to be the main selection. On our trip we had French pastries, fondue, pizza, tiramisu, and nachos.

We got a lot of exercise in walking the streets and visiting Parque Tanguá and Parque Barigüi. Oh, and my favorite part were all the Capivaras!! Still one of the coolest animals ever. I’ll also do a separate post on the sites we got around to visiting.

To top it off the weather was beautiful. Many people comment (or complain) about the cloudy cool weather that seems constant in the city. It was sunny our entire trip with warm days and then cool nights that needed a sweater or jacket. Perfect, in my opinion.

I will say that driving is incredibly confusing in the city. The streets change names about every 2 blocks and many of the intersections resemble more of an X than a +. We got lost several times which was frustrating. Another reason driving is difficult is represented by the picture below.

At first glance one would think this was a road going in each direction. Nope, all four lanes go in one direction. I’m sure it leads to quickly maneuvering through the city if that is the direction you want to go, but we somehow always needed to go the other way.

I’m sure after a while you would get used to it, but it is definitely not visitor friendly.

Overall the trip was wonderful. The change and variety were much needed. There is more to come in later posts. We already had a trip planned there when we have family visit in November, but we are going to try to squeeze in another trip before that for my big 3-0 event as well.