Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Fortaleza de Santa Cruz
Jurujuba • Tues-Sun 10am-5pm, guided tours every 30min • R$6
A hot 2km walk from the last stop on bus #33 (don't forget to take water) is the
Fortaleza de Santa Cruz
,
dating from the sixteenth century. One of a slew of forts built
at strategic points to guard the entrance to Guanabara Bay, it is still in use as a military
establishment, and it's a soldier who guides you round. As the nearest point across the
bay from Rio's Sugar Loaf Mountain, the fort offers particularly good views.
1
Museu de Arqueologia de Itaipu
Praia de Itaipu • Tues-Fri 10am-5pm, Sat & Sun 1-5pm • R$2; Wed free •
T
21 3701 2966 • Take bus #537 from Niterói bus station
To the east of Niterói, beyond the bay, the restaurants, bars and hotels fill up with
cariocas
at weekends. Near Itaipu beach, half an hour by bus from Niterói, the
Museu
de Arqueologia de Itaipu
, in the ruined eighteenth-century Santa Teresa convent, is
worth a visit for its collection of ceramics and other artefacts excavated from ancient
burial mounds.
ARRIVAL AND INFORMATION
NITERÓI
By taxi/car/bus
You can reach Niterói from Rio by car, taxi
or bus across the14km-long Ponte Costa e Silva, the Rio-
Niterói bridge (from the Menezes Cortes
rodoviária
).
By ferry
Passenger ferries (R$4.50) from a station by Praça
XV de Novembro (see p.60) serve central Niterói (Estação
Niterói), and hydrofoils (R$12) run to the Niemeyer-
designed Charitas terminal (Estação Charitas). The
passenger ferry is best for views, and the Niterói terminal is
handiest for the Museu de Arte Contemporânea; the
Charitas terminal is also better for most of the beaches.
Tourist o
ces
There are helpful tourist information
o
ces by the Niterói ferry terminal and at the entrance to
the Teatro Popular site (daily 9am-5pm;
T
21 2611 0646,
W
niteroiturismo.com.br).
EATING
Coelho á Caçarola
Rua Avelino Gomes Castro 64,
Itaipu (5km from the Museu de Arqueologia)
T
21
2608 2205.
Has some 25 different rabbit dishes on its
menu.
Mon-Thurs 11am-10pm, Fri & Sat noon-1am.
Mercado de São Pedro
Rua Visconde do Rio Branco,
Niterói.
Niterói's fish market is also the main fish market
for Rio. As well as seeing an incredible variety of gleaming
fresh seafood downstairs here, you can also eat upstairs,
where some forty restaurants of various sizes serve
delicious fish creations - expect to pay around R$25-50
per head.
Tues-Fri 6am-4pm, Sat & Sun 6am-noon.
Verdanna Grill
Av Quintino Bocaiúva 603 (on the coast
road, 400m north of Charitas ferry terminal)
T
21 2610
5585,
W
verdanna.com.br.
The best place on the Niterói
coast to satisfy a meat craving, where a
rodizio
(mixed grill)
will set you back R$80 (although lunchtime special offers
sometimes reduce this).
Mon-Thurs noon-11pm, Fri &
Sat noon-11.30pm, Sun noon-10pm.
The Costa do Sol
East of Niteroi are three large
lakes
, called Maricá, Saquerema and Araruama, which
are also the names of adjoining towns. The brush around them is full of wildlifeand the
lakes are separated from the ocean by long, narrow stretches of white sand. These form
the
Costa do Sol
, where a string of popular resorts boasts some of the state's best
beaches, attracting visitors from Rio and beyond, particularly at weekends.
Saquarema and around
SAQUAREMA
, 100km east of Rio, is a small town in a beautiful natural setting,
squeezed between the sea and its 16km-long lagoon, retaining vestiges of its origins as a
fishing village. Local anti-pollution legislation means that the environment still sustains
much wildlife, including the
microleão
monkey, which you may be able to glimpse on a
walk into the nearby forests. Saquarema has a healthy agricultural sector, too, based on
fruit cultivation, and orchards surround the town. The main business here nowadays,
