Unfortunately it's not the greatest place to be on a wet autumn day like we had on our second day, and as is forecast for the next few, so we're moving on. I would definitely recommend it in better weather, though.
Just to rub in our bad timing, our second day was a national holiday - we headed into Florianopolis, the main city, and everything in the centre was closed. The rain had let up a bit, so we had a wander round to look at a few picturesque old buildings and found a view of the semi-iconic steel bridge that connects to the mainland (currently closed and covered head-to-toe in scaffolding - there is another bridge too, which is functional but dull, in case you were wondering) and, um, found a mall when it started raining again.
It's a fairly hilly place, especially round the coast, which makes walking less practical than a simple map might suggest, but getting around is straightforward by bus. We stayed in Centro do Lagoa, right by the big lagoon, which is mainly a tourist spot but quite fun, with enough bars, restaurants and shops to keep you going. A nice feature is that lampposts and telegraph poles are decorated with charming little mosaics.
Florianopolis itself sits on both sides of the bridge, so you can stand on the west side of the island (carefully, since the coast here is used for an eight-lane highway) and see both city and hills staring back at you from the mainland, like a giant mirror. Some people might even get confused as to whether they were on an island or the mainland...
Brazil is taking a little adjusting to after Argentina. Bearing in mind that Lilly was taught Spanish for a year when she was 12, and I never learned any, we'd done pretty well to get to a stage where we could communicate in restaurants. Of course, that goes out of the window when you get to Brazil, which unlike the rest of the continent speaks Portuguese. It's just similar enough to Spanish to lead you astray.
So in some ways the best kind of restaurant is one where you don't have to read a menu or order, and amongst the locals in Brazil the 'Por kilo' places seem very popular and good value. They just have a buffet, you grab what you like, and then they weigh your plate and charge you by weight. Simple. And just as well, since the one a la carte we've had was ridiculously huge - I think a lot of dishes here are really designed for 2 people (though the ones we had last night explicitly said for 1), which would be fine if Lilly fancied eating grilled chicken every day for the next 3 weeks... In that sense I suspect my ideal holiday partner is Jack Russell.*
* English cricketer who famously ate the same meal every day when on tour to countries whose cuisine he did not trust.
Another local peculiarity is billing - giving you a list of everything on the menu and ticking what you've had so you can pay a cashier on your way out. We've seen this in pubs and even when buying a single muffin from a food stall in a mall...
Finally, although I didn't think much of Argentinian beers (with the notable exception of a brilliant artesan beer called Patagonia that I found in Iguazu, served from a freezing cold bottle even though it wasn't a lager), and the main Brazilian beers seem even less likely to win awards (I was shocked to discover that the main beer seems to be Skol, possibly the worst beer ever brewed), they also have a lot of German-style beers. More on this next time, for reasons I will explain...
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