Weekend Trip to Gramado -- Part IV

Before heading home, we stopped by Lago Negro -- the Black Lake. It's a man-made lake that was built by a German immigrant in the 1800s after a fire destroyed part of the area. He planned to reforest the area with trees brought in from Germany!

Then we stopped by the wood-oven bakery in the city center. It's outside on the square! The bread and cakes were amazing!

On the way home, we stopped by Nova Petropolis to eat lunch called "Cafe Colonial" at Opa's Kaffeehaus. It is by far the most food I have ever seen served at a meal. The tradition began in the 1800s when German immigrants would cook huge feasts on the rare occasions that the settlers got together. Today, it has evolved to this quantity of food. It's intense. Some things are sweet and others are savory. We were definitely in pain afterward from trying to taste even a tiny portion of everything.

Weekend Trip to Gramado -- Part III

Here are some more photos of Gramado... The whole visit I was there I felt slightly dumbstruck by its similarity to Germany and Austria, in a slightly exaggerated way. 

That night, we ate fondue! The meal started with cheese fondue with bread, potatoes and broccoli, then they brought us a hot stone to cook steak and chicken cutlets on (served with 15 sauces), and finally we ended with chocolate fondue! It was amazing.

The Christmas lights were beautiful! A parade was happening while we were eating dinner, and so we just caught the tail-end of it.

Weekend Trip to Gramado -- Part II

The next morning, we tried to go hiking at a park nearby... Alas, our legs were too tired to make the 10 mile hike down to the river. So tired we didn't go far beyond the summit of the park. But it was beautiful!

The park also had a lot of religious shrines -- it's a pilgrimage site.

After the park, we took a walk around Gramado, the most famous and tourist-laden of the towns. It's famous for making artisan chocolates, and we sampled chocolates a few of the shops.

The city had already put up its Christmas decorations! 

A gaucho snowman!

Later we went to a scenic overlook next to the oldest hotel in the town. It was so beautiful! Did I mention that there are walls of hydrangeas as far as the eye can see?

Weekend Trip to Gramado Part I

About a month ago, Marcio and I took advantage of another 3-day weekend to take a trip to the Serra (Mountain) Region to visit one of his cousins. This region is the most famous area of the state and attracts a lot of weekenders from Sao Paulo and other cities across Brazil. It looks like several Alpine villages were transported into Brazil because the communities were first colonized by German immigrants.

On the drive there, we passed through a little town called Nova Petropolis. They were having a spring festival complete with a German polka band. In the center of town, they have a labyrinth maze of hedges to walk through, and we were lost for quite some time. In the end, we made it to the middle.

Later, we headed to Canela, the town where Marcio's cousin has a weekend house. It is a beautiful place, situated next to a famous waterfall. To see the water fall, we had to go down (and then up) about 1,000,000 stairs. Or 800. They were steep, and our legs felt exhausted for the next two days.

After the main waterfall, there was a series of other beautiful waterfalls along the river that was practically deserted because so many people get tired out after the first one!

Marcio drinking a fake chimmao -- the green tea drink that everyone here is crazy about!

This is a verse of poetry by the Brazilian poet Mario Quintana -- "The secret isn't to run after butterflies. It's to take care of a garden so that they will come to you."