Blumenau

Upon first hearing about it, I was immediately intrigued by the idea of a European Valley in Brazil. I learned a lot about the area sitting next to a friendly Brazilian during one my flights to the US. He lived in the US, but traveled back to Sao Paulo for work regularly and had traveled his home country extensively.

On the flight he told me all about this are of the country and how there were small towns which had a high concentration of German and Italian immigrants. This was reflected in the city designs, foods and languages spoken.

Others we’ve met during our abroad experience have echoed this same information. We had been hearing about Blumenau since we moved to Brazil. Most of this came from people talking about the Oktoberfest held there each year.

After hearing more and more about it I knew I really wanted to visit the city of Blumenau to experience this strong German influence in Brazil. To be honest though, the reviews were really mixed. These are a few things we were told by friends and acquaintances.

-It’s a beautiful city with great German beer and food.
-Don’t go to Oktoberfest. It is just a college drunken fest and they only serve Brahma.
-There’s really nothing interesting to see there.
-It is a great place to spend a weekend.
-It is German, but has changed a lot. You have to go outside the city to smaller towns like Pomerode to see a lot of German influence and hear the language.

Despite the mixed reviews we decided we did want to see this place and since it is somewhat on the way from Florianopolis we chose to spend one night there on our drive back from the coast.

As we drove into the city it took a while to start seeing evidence of German culture.

Once we got downtown though, we realized there were several buildings that resembled those which you think of when Bavaria comes to mind. However, along with this were signs that you were certainly still in Brazil – typical Brazilian department stores, churro and pipoca carts and people sitting out in plastic chairs drinking Bramha and Bohemia.

This building is known as the castle and it now houses a Havan store. One of the tourist brochures we got said that it is the second most photographed structure/site in southern Brazil after only Foz de Iguaçu.

We saw a beer garden listed on the tourist map so we headed in that direction. It turned out to be a park, but there was a beer museum there and we were able to learn about all the microbreweries in the surrounding area. There was a restaurant there serving Eisenbahn which is brewed in Blumenau so that was our first stop. We can get this in Curitiba too, but having it a bit closer to the source was worth it. The wheat beer was excellent.

We were expecting there to be a lot of German restaurants, but at first glance this was not the case. However, Café Colonial was very popular and we just happened to be staying at the hotel which was widely known for having the best one, Hotel Gloria.

If you aren’t familiar Café Colonial it is basically a dessert dream come true. It is a buffet of cakes, tortas, pastries and even a few breads and salty snacks. The hours are usually late afternoon into the evening, just the time you want to overdose on sugar to get you through the day. We have experienced a Café Colonial in Curitiba, but didn’t make the actual event in Blumenau. We did however get free breakfast at the hotel and they had many of their cakes on the buffet that morning. They were excellent!

We wanted a traditional German meal during our stay and the restaurant Frohsinn was repeatedly recommended to us. It sits up on a hill overlooking the city. We were expecting some type of casual beer garden, but it turned out to be more of an elegant restaurant.

We couldn’t pass up the Oktoberfest platter which feeds two, by the way (this really means it feeds four). Pork knee, sausages, stuffed duck, spaetzle, sauerkraut, pureed peas and potatoes came out on this massive platter almost as long as our table. Every bit of it was delicious. We liked the pork knee better than the one we had in Vienna last summer.

An added treat was that we got to try another microbrew, this one Schronstein from the city of Pomerode. We really enjoyed it as well, but I think Eisenbahn remains my favorite when it comes to Brazilian beer.

I think my husband and I both agree that Blumenau is a cool place to visit if it is on the way from one destination to another. However, we wouldn’t recommend that someone make a special trip there and are happy that we didn’t travel just to see it.

The food and beer were excellent and a nice change from the norm for us. On the other hand, the city itself, although charming, isn’t incredibly impressive or different; at least not so much so as to warrant a 10 hour drive there for us. I am very happy that we got to see it though and I still find that whole area of the country appealing. I think more exploration of the surrounding towns is a must if you go. If we would have had more time we definitely would have set out on some driving adventures outside of Blumenau.