Three days in Florianopolis: the island Brazilians move to and Argentines take over in January

Two nights on Santa Catarina island: the old centre and the suspension bridge, a day at the lagoon with a boat, a forest trail and the dunes, then oysters in an Azorean fishing village on the way to the plane.

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Length
3 days, 2 nights
Where you stay
Florianopolis
Places
7 across 3 days
OpenFreeMap © OpenMapTiles Data from OpenStreetMap

Most of Florianopolis is not a city. It is a 54 kilometre island of forested hills, lagoons, dunes and something over forty beaches, joined to the mainland by three bridges, with a small colonial capital tucked into the sheltered western side. Then in January the population roughly doubles, half of it arriving by road from Buenos Aires, and the place becomes something else entirely for six weeks.

The rest of the year it is the quiet success story of Brazil: a state capital with the highest quality of life indicators in the country, a large software industry, cold clear water, and a fishing culture the Azorean settlers brought in the 1750s and never quite abandoned.

Two nights covers three distinct versions of the island: the centre, the lagoon and dunes in the middle, and the oyster villages in the south. Beaches are the one thing that needs no planning at all.

Highlights

  • The Hercilio Luz bridge, a 1926 suspension span that was shut for nearly forty years and now belongs to pedestrians
  • Walking the Costa da Lagoa trail out to a village with no road, and coming back on the boat
  • The dunes above Joaquina, a mountain of white sand you can slide down on a board
  • Oysters in Ribeirao da Ilha, eaten a hundred metres from where they were farmed
  • The municipal market at lunchtime, where the bars serve fish pastries and cold beer to everyone at once

Where to stay

Florianopolis

The island runs north to south for over fifty kilometres with a mountain spine down the middle, so it splits naturally into four: the historic centre and the bridges on the sheltered west side, the lagoon and surf beaches in the middle east, the developed north, and the quiet Azorean south. The airport is in the south, which is convenient.

Two nights gives the centre an evening, the lagoon and the dunes a full day, and the oyster villages a last morning on the way out. Everything below is within half an hour of everything else outside the summer peak.

Day by day

Day 1 in Florianopolis

The market, the old square and the bridge at dusk

The colonial centre is small, faded and pleasant, wedged between the water and a hill, and a couple of hours covers it. It is also where the island eats and drinks properly, which the beach neighbourhoods do not.

Start at the market, which is the social centre of the town rather than a food hall. The bars inside it fill up from about five with people standing at the counters, and it is the best hour in Florianopolis.

Then walk the two blocks to the main square and out to the bridge. The old suspension bridge was closed for most of forty years, restored at enormous expense, and now carries nobody except people walking across it at sunset.

  1. 16:00

    Municipal Market

    Other

    The old public market beside the customs house, two long halls of fishmongers, spice stalls and cachaca shops with bars wedged between them. Go late in the afternoon, order a prawn pastel and a small beer, and stand up to eat it like everyone else.

  2. 17:30

    Catedral Metropolitana

    Religious

    The cathedral on the main square, plain outside and calm within, with the old governor's palace across the way and a huge fig tree on the corner that the city put in its own anthem. Ten minutes, and the square is the point.

  3. 18:30

    Hercílio Luz Bridge

    Architecture

    Opened in 1926 and the longest suspension bridge in Brazil when it was built, closed as unsafe in 1982 and reopened after a restoration that took decades. It now carries pedestrians and cyclists only, and walking out over the channel as the light goes is the picture everyone takes of this city.

  4. 20:00

    Dinner in the centre

    Eat

    The streets behind the market have the island's best restaurants and none of the summer markup, with plenty of seafood and a couple of good Italian places. Book at weekends in summer.

With more time: The nineteenth century theatre and the old provincial palace on the same square are both open during the day and take twenty minutes each. If the evening is warm, the bars along the seafront north of the market keep going late and are where the town goes on a Friday.

Day 2 in Florianopolis

A trail to a village with no road, then the dunes

The lagoon in the middle of the island is the best day here, and the reason is a village called Costa da Lagoa that sits on the far shore with no road to it. You get there on foot along the water or by boat, and most people do one each way.

The trail runs about two hours through forest along the lagoon side, past a few houses and a waterfall, with the water below you most of the way. It is not difficult but it is up and down, so take water and start early. Eat at the village, where the restaurants are built out over the lagoon on stilts and the fish came out of it.

Come back on the boat, then cross to the ocean side for the dunes in the late afternoon, when the sand stops being hot enough to burn.

  1. 09:00

    Trilha da Costa da Lagoa

    Visit

    A two hour walk through Atlantic forest along the northern shore of the lagoon, ending at a village of about two hundred people that has never had a road. Boats run back to the town every hour or so and the timetable is worth checking before you set out.

  2. 12:30

    Lunch on stilts at Costa da Lagoa

    Eat

    Half a dozen restaurants at the end of the trail, all built out over the water and all serving the same thing: fried fish, prawns, cassava. There is no menu worth studying. This is why people do the walk.

  3. 14:30

    Lagoa da Conceição

    Other

    A brackish lagoon filling the crater of the island's middle, ringed by hills, with a village at its southern end holding most of the island's nightlife and half its restaurants. Kitesurfing and stand-up boards for hire on the sheltered side.

  4. 16:00

    Dunes

    Visit

    A field of white dunes several storeys high running between the lagoon and the ocean beaches, where you can hire a board and slide down them. Late afternoon is the time: earlier the sand is too hot to walk on barefoot.

With more time: The ocean beaches just beyond the dunes are five minutes further and are where to end the day if the swell is up. The sea turtle project up the coast keeps rescued animals in tanks and is a genuinely good hour with children.

Day 3 in Florianopolis

Oysters in the south, then the plane

The southwestern shore is where the Azorean settlers landed in the 1750s and where their descendants still fish. It is also, improbably, the centre of the Brazilian oyster industry: the sheltered bays here produce the great majority of the country's farmed oysters, and the rafts are visible from the road.

Ribeirao da Ilha is the village to go to. One street of colonial houses along the water facing the mainland, a church on a small square, and a row of restaurants with tables at the edge of the bay.

The airport is fifteen minutes away, which makes this the ideal last morning. Eat early rather than late if the flight is in the afternoon.

  1. 10:00

    Ribeirão da Ilha

    Landmark

    The oldest settlement on the island, a single street of low colonial houses and a whitewashed church along the sheltered western shore, with the oyster rafts moored offshore. The restaurants serve them raw, gratinated or breaded, and they cost a fraction of what they would anywhere else.

With more time: If the flight is later, the other Azorean village up the same coast has a church from 1750, a row of craft workshops and the best sunset on the island. The southern beaches beyond Ribeirao, reached down dirt roads or on foot, are the emptiest sand within reach of the airport.

Before you go

Getting in and getting around

Hercilio Luz airport sits at the southern end of the island, twelve kilometres from the centre, with domestic flights and a growing number from Argentina, Chile and Uruguay. Long distance coaches come in over the bridges from Curitiba, four hours north, and Porto Alegre.

A car makes this island much easier. Distances are real, the buses are slow, and the good parts of the coast are half an hour apart. If you would rather not drive, ride-hailing works across the whole island and the bus network runs on a hub system through interchange terminals, which is workable once you understand it.

One road runs up the east coast and one down the west, and in January and February both jam solid. Allow twice the time you would expect in high summer.

When to go

This is the far south and it has a proper winter. From June to August the days are mild, the sea is cold, the beaches are empty and the island is at its most pleasant to walk. Summer, from December to March, is hot, busy and expensive, and January is when the Argentine holiday season lands on it.

The best compromise is the shoulder: March to May and September to November, when the water is still swimmable, the roads are clear and the prices are half what they are at New Year.

The Atlantic here is genuinely cold, colder than anywhere further north in Brazil, and the east-coast surf beaches have strong currents. Swim where there are flags.

Which side of the island

The east coast faces the open Atlantic: big surf, wide beaches, dunes, and a young crowd. Joaquina is the surf beach that everybody knows; further north the sand runs on for kilometres behind wall-to-wall apartment blocks, and that is where the package holidays go.

The north coast has calm, warm, shallow water and the smartest development, at Jurere. The south is the quiet half: small bays, a national forest, fishing communities and beaches that need a walk to reach.

The west coast has no surf and no beach to speak of, and it has the sunsets, the oyster farms and the best restaurants on the island.

Eating

Santa Catarina produces the overwhelming majority of Brazil's farmed oysters, and they are grown in the sheltered bays on the west side of this island. Eat them there, at a table over the water, raw or gratinated, for a fraction of what an oyster costs anywhere else.

The other local dishes are sequencia de camarao, a procession of prawn courses that arrives until you stop it, and pastel de camarao from a market bar. The Azorean influence shows up in the fish stews and in the cassava flour on everything.

The market in the centre is the easy introduction, and the counter bars in the western wing are an institution: standing room, beer in a small glass, and a plate of something fried.

Where to stay

The centre is the practical base for a short trip: it is where the buses go, it has the market and the old buildings, and it is twenty minutes from everything. It is not where anybody comes on holiday.

Lagoa da Conceicao is the popular choice, sitting in the middle of the island with the lagoon on one side and the surf beaches on the other, with restaurants and nightlife and a short hop to both coasts. The southern villages are quieter and better for a longer stay.

The north coast resorts are the ones to avoid unless the beach itself is the whole point of the trip, because getting anywhere else from them takes an hour in summer traffic.

Florianopolis rewards a car and a loose plan. The distances are small, the landscape changes every ten minutes, and half the good things here are down a side road that looks like it goes nowhere.

Whatever else you do, take the boat or the trail to the village on the far side of the lagoon and eat there. It is the one thing on the island that could not be anywhere else.

Make it your trip

Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.

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Common questions

How many days do you need in Florianopolis?
Two nights covers the centre, the lagoon and the south. A week is what most people actually want here, because the island has over forty beaches and no two are alike, and because the pace is the point.
When should you avoid Florianopolis?
January and the first half of February, unless the crowd is what you came for. The island fills with Brazilian and Argentine holidaymakers, the roads jam, and accommodation prices double or worse. March and April are the same weather with none of that.
Do you need a car?
It helps a great deal. The island is fifty four kilometres long, the bus network runs through interchange hubs and takes time, and the best places are spread out. Ride-hailing covers everything if you would rather not drive, and for two nights based centrally it is manageable without one.
Is the sea warm?
No. This is the far south of Brazil and the ocean side is cold even in summer, with the temperature swinging by several degrees depending on the wind. The north coast bays are noticeably warmer and shallower, which is why families go there.
Which beach should you choose?
Surf and dunes on the east coast; calm shallow water in the north bays; quiet walk-in coves in the south. If you only have one afternoon, the east coast beside the dunes is the most dramatic.