Fortaleza

Introduction

Fortaleza

© Snow21

Fortaleza is a coastal city and capital of the northeastern state of Ceará, Brazil. With more than 3,000,000 people it is the fifth largest city in Brazil.

Sights and Activities

The Metropolitan Cathedral of Fortaleza is the third largest cathedral in Brazil. It was nearly took 40 years to complete (1939-1978). Designer was french architect George Mounier. It fits 5,000 people and was built in Gothic-Roman style. Address: Rua Mons. Tito Guedes, Centro Phone: (85) 3231-4196 / 3231-5084.

Events and Festivals

World Cup 2014

Australian Fans

© Peter

The FIFA World Cup 2014 will be held in Brazil. It takes place from 12 June to 13 July 2014. It will be the second time that Brazil has hosted the competition, the previous being in 1950. The national teams of 32 countries will join the second biggest sports event in the world (after the Olympic Games). A total of 64 matches are to be played in twelve cities across Brazil, with the tournament beginning with a group stage. For the first time at a World Cup Finals, the matches will use goal-line technology. Twelve locations will be World Cup host cities: Belo Horizonte, Brasília, Cuiabá, Curitiba, Fortaleza, Manaus, Natal, Porto Alegre, Recife, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador and São Paulo. They cover all the main regions of Brazil and create more evenly distributed hosting than the 1950 finals in Brazil provided, when matches were concentrated in the south-east and south. As a result the tournament will require significant long-distance travel for teams. Brazil opens the tournament against Croatia, played in Sao Paulo on the 12th of June, and the final will be played on the 13th of July in Rio de Janeiro.

Weather

Hot and humid year round with temperatures mostly around 30 °C during the day and well above 20 °C at night.

Getting There

By Plane

Pinto Martins International Airport (FOR) has a reasonable range of flights, mainly with domestic choices but also with some intercontinental charter flights. Destinations include Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Brasilia, Belem, Recife, Manaus, Belo Horizonte, Salvador da Bahia, Porto Alegre, Natal, Porto Velho, Santarem, Praia, Amsterdam, Rome, Milan and Lisbon, among several other smaller Brazilian cities.

Eat

One of the most important Brazilian magazines "Veja", publishes an annual list of the best restaurants in large cities in Brazil. These are some of choices for Fortaleza.

• Alimenta Bistrô - Best restaurant in Fortaleza. Elected best restaurant in town for the second year in a row. Also elected the best Contemporaneous Cuisine restaurant. Fernando Barroso, the chef, was elected for Chef of the Year 2005. Address: Avenida Dom Luís, 1112, Aldeota. Phone 3267.5885.
• Pulcinella - Best Italian restaurant. Two houses. Specialty is pasta combined with seafood. Address 1: Rua Osvaldo Cruz, 640, Aldeota, 3261-3411. Address 2: Avenida Senador Virgílio Távora, 600, 3244-0133.
• Colher de Pau - Best Regional Food. The name of the restaurant means Wooden Spoon, an utensil considered magic by local cooks. The decoration of the restaurant is also based on wood, combining rusticity and regionalism. The house offers the popular dishes like carne de sol (jerked tender beef) and galinha caipira (countryside chicken). Address : Rua Frederico Borges, 206, Varjota, 3267-3773.
• Kingyo - Best Japanese restaurant. Elected by Veja for the sixth year in row as the best Japanese restaurant in Fortaleza. On some nights, customers can enjoy the kaisseki, a combination of sixteen Japanese dishes and one dessert. Address: Rua Pereira Valente, 1520, Varjota, 3267-3033 .
• Vignoli - Best Pizza. The restaurant opened in 2005 and was an instant success. Address: Rua Frederico Borges, 81, Varjota, 3267-9066/6450.
• Santa Grelha - Best Beef. The name means Holy Grill. This is the fourth time that this restaurant is elected by Veja the best of its kind in Fortaleza. The house specializes in cuts from noble meats, many imported from Argentina. Notice, however, that the service is a la carte. Address: Rua Vicente Leite, 1062, Aldeota, 3224-0249 or 3264-8405.
• Mucuripe Grill - Best Feijoada. Magazin elected this restaurant for the best feijoada in Fortaleza for the 7th year. Address: Avenida Beira-Mar, 3980, Gran Marquise by Sol Meliá, Mucuripe, 4006-5000.
• Milmar - Best Fish and Seafood. Specialty is shrimps, with 20 different recipes. On Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays there is a buffet of shrimps for lunch; on Thursdays and Fridays, buffet is of seafood, for dinner. Address: Rua Frederico Borges, 496, Varjota, 3267-1338.
• Lautrec - Best French restaurant. Address: Avenida Dom Luís, 1113, Shopping Buganvília, 3264-4020.
• Expand Store - Best wine selection. The Expand Store wine shop has long been the most well regarded in Fortaleza. The restaurant has a climatized cellar, with over 700 labels. Also have a space for smokers. Address: Avenida Santos Dumont, 3131, 1st floor, Shopping Del Paseo, 3456-3377 or 3456-3009.

Sleep

Iracema beach Fortaleza

© Casa Cohiba

Keep Connected

Internet

Internet cafes (Lan houses) are increasingly common, and even small towns often have at least one spot with more or less decent connections.
An increasing number of hotels, airports and shopping malls also offer hotspots for Wi-Fi with your laptop computer or of course smartphone. Sometimes it is free, sometimes you need to register and there is a time limite and sometimes you need to pay a small amount for (day) use.

Phone

See also International Telephone Calls

The country calling code to Brazil is: 55. To make an international call from , the code is: 0014. All cities use the following emergency numbers: 190 (police), 192 (medical) and 193 (fire department). However, if you dial 911 or 112 while in Brazil, you will be redirected to the police.
Brazil uses two-digit area codes, and phone numbers are eight digits long. Numbers beginning with digits 2 to 5 are land lines, while eight-digit numbers beginning with digits 6 to 9 are mobile phones.

Public payphones use disposable prepaid cards, which come with 20, 40, 60 or 75 credits. The discount for buying cards with larger denominations is marginal. Phone booths are nearly everywhere, and all cards can be used in all booths, regardless of the owner phone company. Cards can be bought from many small shops, and almost all news agents sell them.

Brazil has 4 national mobile operators: Vivo (Telefónica Group), Claro (Telmex/América Móvil Group), OI and TIM (Telecom Italia Group), all of them running GSM and HSDPA/HSPA+ networks. Pay-as-you-go (pré-pago) SIM cards for GSM phones are widely available in places like newsstands, drugstores, supermarkets, retail shops, etc.

Post

Correios is the national postal service of Brazil. It is a government run postal service and overseen by the Brazilian Ministry of Communications. Post offices are generally open from Monday to Friday from 09:00am to 5:00pm, although post offices located in shopping malls have their own opening hours, usually from 10:00am to 10:00pm. There are no set opening hours at weekends and as post office owners can choose when to open and close. More and more post offices are open until 1:00pm on Saturdays though. You can check things at the nearest post office.

Sending postcards, letters and parcels is a rather straightforward process and services are reliable, though not overly fast when sending post internationally, mostly taking about a week to the USA and Europe, and there is a track-and-trace service for this as well. Domestically, there are both next day as well as more expensive same day delivery options. Stamps are available at post offices, as well as some kiosks or other places where they sell postcards.

For sending packages internationally, you can also used competitively priced private companies like TNT, UPS or DHL. They are generally much quicker and not much more expensive.

External Links

• Official Website