Three days in Manaus: an opera house a thousand miles up the Amazon
Two nights in the rubber capital: the opera house and the belle epoque centre, a day on the river where the two waters run side by side without mixing, and the old market on the last morning.
- Length
- 3 days, 2 nights
- Where you stay
- Manaus
- Places
- 6 across 3 days
For about thirty years around 1900 this city had more money per head than almost anywhere on earth, because the rubber tree grew here and nowhere else and the world had just invented the motor car. The barons who owned the trade built themselves a European capital in the middle of the rainforest: an opera house with Italian marble and a French curtain, a customs house shipped out from England in pieces, electric trams before Lisbon had them.
Then somebody smuggled seeds to Malaya, the plantations there undercut everything, and it ended almost overnight. What survives is a strange, hot, sprawling city of two million people, reachable only by air or by river, with a European theatre standing on a hill above the largest river system on the planet.
Two nights is enough for the city itself and a day on the water. Almost everybody who comes here is also going up-river to a lodge, and the sensible shape of a trip is a night either side of that.
Highlights
- The Teatro Amazonas, built out of rubber money in 1896 and still putting on opera
- The meeting of the waters, where the black Rio Negro and the sandy Solimoes flow together for kilometres without mixing
- The floating forest, walked on boardwalks over water in the wet season and on the forest floor in the dry
- An 1883 iron market hall on the waterfront, modelled on the old Paris halls
- Tambaqui, a river fish the size of a dinner plate, grilled on the ribs
Where to stay
Manaus
The old centre sits on a low hill above the Rio Negro, with the opera house at the top and the port at the bottom, and everything historic within fifteen minutes on foot. The rest of the city runs north and east for twenty kilometres in a grid of free-trade-zone factories and housing, with the river beach at Ponta Negra out to the northwest.
Two nights covers the centre in one afternoon and the river in one full day, with the waterfront market before the plane. It is also the right amount of time either side of a stay at a lodge up-river.
Day by day
Day 1 in Manaus
The opera house and the rubber barons' hill
The centre is small and almost all of what is worth seeing was built between 1890 and 1910 with money from a tree. Start high and work down towards the port; it is too hot to do it in the other order.
The opera house is the point. It took fifteen years to build, everything in it came by ship from Europe, and the story that the road outside was surfaced with rubber so carriage wheels would not disturb the singers is true. Tours run through the day and there is a proper season, so check whether anything is on while you are here.
Around it are a couple of streets of pastel mansions and public buildings from the same years, several of which are now free museums, and one of them was the state governor's house.
- 09:30
Teatro Amazonas
HistoricOpened on the last day of 1896: Italian marble stairs, a Parisian curtain painted with the meeting of the waters, chairs from Alsace and a dome of thirty-six thousand tiles in the national colours, all shipped up the river. Guided tours run most of the day and take about half an hour.
- 11:30
Palacete Provincial
ArchitectureA grand pink building on the square below the opera house, once the provincial police headquarters and now three small museums in one, covering archaeology, coins and Amazonian art. Free, air conditioned, and a good hour out of the heat.
- 12:45
Lunch near the opera house
EatThe streets immediately behind the theatre have small restaurants doing a set lunch with river fish. Ask for tambaqui if it is on, and try a juice made from a fruit you have never heard of.
- 14:30
Palácio Rio Negro
HistoricThe house a German rubber merchant built for himself in 1913, later the state governor's residence and now a free cultural centre with the original rooms kept as they were. It is the clearest picture anywhere of how these people actually lived.
With more time: The cathedral and the small museum of the state's indigenous peoples are both within ten minutes of the square, and the riverfront promenade below the centre is the place to watch boats being loaded in the late afternoon. If the theatre has a performance while you are here, go: tickets are cheap and the building is better full.
Day 2 in Manaus
Out where two rivers refuse to mix
This is the day everyone comes for and it starts early. A few kilometres downstream of the city the Rio Negro, black, warm and slow, meets the Solimoes, pale brown with Andean silt, cold and fast. They run side by side for several kilometres with a hard visible line between them before they finally merge into what the rest of the world calls the Amazon.
The standard boat trip carries on past it into the smaller channels, where the forest floods for half the year and the villages float on rafts. Depending on the season you either paddle between the tree trunks or walk on the ground under them.
Come back into the city in the late afternoon and go out to the river beach, which is where the whole city goes when the sun drops.
- 08:00
Parque Ecologico Janauari
VisitA protected stretch of flooded forest across the river from the city, reached by boat and walked on long boardwalks. Giant water lilies, floating restaurants and a decent chance of pink river dolphins. Most day trips from Manaus include it along with the meeting of the waters.
- 13:00
Peixaria Morongueta
EatAn open-sided fish restaurant looking straight out at the point where the two rivers meet, which is a better view of it than any boat gets. Grilled tambaqui, cold beer and a couple of hours in the shade.
- 17:00
Praia da Ponta Negra
NatureThe city's river beach, wide and pale when the water is low and gone entirely when it is high, with a promenade of bars and food stalls behind it and the Rio Negro bridge strung across the horizon. Sunset here is the local evening out.
With more time: If the boat trip is not for you, the open-air museum north of the city has a 42 metre steel tower that gets you above the canopy, which is a completely different way of seeing the forest and takes half a day. The research institute in town keeps manatees and giant otters in tanks and is the only place most visitors will see either.
Day 3 in Manaus
The market on the waterfront, then the plane
The last morning belongs down at the port, where an iron and glass market hall from 1883 sits on the waterfront looking as though it has been lifted out of nineteenth century Paris, which is more or less what happened.
The building was restored a decade ago and is now more craft than cabbage, but the working produce market spills into the streets and the sheds around it, and that is where to walk: stalls of river fish the length of your arm, sacks of cassava flour, bark and roots sold as medicine, and fruit nobody outside the basin has heard of.
The airport is half an hour north. Flights out are mostly in the afternoon and evening.
- 08:00
Mercado Municipal Adolpho Lisboa
HistoricBuilt in 1883 in iron and glass in imitation of the old central market in Paris, and shipped out in pieces like everything else here. Restored and now largely handicrafts inside, with the real fish and produce trade in the streets and sheds around it. Go early, when the boats are unloading.
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With more time: The old customs house a few minutes along the waterfront was prefabricated in England and assembled here, and the floating dock beside it rises and falls with the river. If the flight is late, the museum of the rubber estate downstream is reached by boat and rebuilds a baron's house exactly as it was, having originally been built as a film set.
Before you go
Getting there, and getting out on the water
There is no road east. Manaus is reached by plane from every big Brazilian city, or by riverboat from Belem, which takes four to five days downstream and rather longer coming up and is one of the great slow journeys anywhere. The airport is 13 km north of the centre.
In the city, ride-hailing is cheap and is what everyone uses; the historic centre itself is walkable but hot, and best done before eleven. The bus network exists and is hard to use without local knowledge.
Every trip on the river is booked, either through a hotel, an agency in the centre, or the lodge you are staying at. Prices vary enormously for the same boat, so ask two or three. The standard day trip combines the meeting of the waters, a floating village and a walk in the flooded forest, and it takes most of a day.
The jungle lodges, and whether to bother with the city
Most people fly in, spend a night, go up-river for two or three, and fly out. That works, and the city deserves the day or two either end rather than being treated purely as an airport.
Lodges range from cabins with a fan and a hammock to something close to a hotel, and the distance from Manaus matters more than the star rating: within about sixty kilometres you are in a much-used stretch of river, and beyond two hundred you start seeing animals rather than the places animals used to be. Ask how long the transfer takes before booking, because a cheap lodge four hours away eats a day at each end.
Nothing is guaranteed. This is dense forest, not a savannah, and most of what you see is birds, caiman, monkeys and pink river dolphins rather than anything large on the ground.
When to go, and what the water is doing
The river rises and falls by ten metres or more over the year and that changes the trip completely. High water runs roughly May to July, when the forest floods and you go through the trees by canoe. Low water runs September to November, when beaches appear, the fishing is better and there is ground to walk on.
Rain falls in some quantity all year and peaks between December and May. It arrives as an hour of downpour rather than a grey day. Temperatures sit near 30 degrees and the humidity is constant, so plan for two showers a day and pack light cotton.
Yellow fever vaccination is required or strongly advised depending on where you have come from, and malaria prophylaxis is worth discussing with a doctor for anything deep up-river. Take repellent with a high concentration of the active ingredient rather than a holiday spray.
Eating
Amazonian cooking is unlike anything else in Brazil and worth taking seriously. Tambaqui and pirarucu are the two fish to order, the first grilled on its ribs, the second salted and served in flakes. Tucupi, a yellow sauce fermented from wild cassava that is poisonous until it is cooked, turns up in soups and with duck.
Jambu is the leaf that makes your mouth tingle and go numb, and it is not a mistake. The fruit is where this region is unbeatable: cupuacu, graviola, taperreba, acai served as a savoury bowl with fish rather than as a smoothie.
Eat lunch as the main meal. The waterfront restaurants at Ponta Negra and the small places around the opera house are the easy options.
Staying safe
The historic centre is busy and fine by day and empties after dark, and the port area is best avoided at night. Street robbery is the risk rather than anything worse, and the usual rules apply: nothing in your hands on the street, ride-hailing after sunset, and the day's cash rather than everything.
On the water, wear the life jacket, keep hands inside the boat where there are caiman, and take the guide's advice about swimming, which is fine in the black water of the Rio Negro in most places and not always fine elsewhere.
Nothing prepares you for the scale of the water. From the promenade the far bank is a smudge, ocean ships tie up fifteen hundred kilometres from the sea, and the river you are looking at is only one of the two that make the Amazon.
Give the city its day. An opera house built by people who were rich for twenty years and then were not, standing in the middle of a rainforest, is a stranger thing than any jungle lodge brochure.
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.
Common questions
- Is Manaus worth visiting, or should you go straight to a lodge?
- Both. The opera house and the rubber-boom centre are genuinely worth a day, and the meeting of the waters is best done from the city rather than from a lodge. Two nights here plus two or three up-river is the shape most people end up wanting.
- When is the best time to visit the Amazon around Manaus?
- It depends what you want. High water from May to July floods the forest and you travel through the trees by canoe. Low water from September to November brings out beaches, better fishing and walking trails. There is no dry month in the European sense, so pack for rain whenever you come.
- How do you get to the meeting of the waters?
- By boat, on a trip booked through a hotel or an agency, usually combined with the flooded forest and a floating village and taking most of a day. There is also a fish restaurant on the south bank with a direct view of the line where the rivers meet, reachable by road and ferry.
- Is Manaus safe?
- The centre is fine in daylight and empties after dark, and the port area is not somewhere to walk at night. Treat it like any large Brazilian city: keep valuables out of sight, use ride-hailing in the evening, and do not carry more than you need.
- How many days do you need in Manaus?
- Two nights covers the city and the river. If the lodge is booked separately, arrive a day before it starts and leave a day after it ends, which gives you the centre on one and the water on the other.