Recife, Olinda

28 February: I'm awake before 6, before the alarm goes off, we pack, I fetch all our stuff which is still in the car into the room. We're planning to leave the Pousada before 7 so we can make it all the way to near the airport to return our car by 8. It's still before 7 but we discover that breakfast is already being served at our Pousada. That's great, because it's quite good.

We set off for the long drive to the airport. I more of less follow the sun going south. It's takes many kilometres for the Aeroporto sign to pop up. At the airport I quickly go in to change money. It's one customer at a time at the teller's cabin, in which it's only you and him inside with a glass door not permitting anyone else.

We drive on to the Hertz office and were there at exactly 7:59. Wow, what timing. The car return was easy, they even drove us back to the airport!

Art deco building in Recife	At a local florist in Recife
Igreja da Ordem Terceira de Sño Fransisco in Recife	Capela Dourada in Igreja da Ordem Terceira de Sño Fransisco in Recife (not allowed to photograph)
Casa de Cultura is a former prison	Brazilians have such good taste with telephones
In Casa de Cultura Restaurant. Check out the thickness of the wall.	Casa de Cultura
posing for a picture	Former cell in Casa de Cultura

We then caught the bus back to Recife town-centre and took a lot at a couple of nice churches there, among them Igreja da Ordem Terceira de Sño Fransisco. We then continued on to the Casa de Cultura which used to be a prison but is now a handicraft centre with individual shops residing in the former cells.

We then go on by bus and taxi to Olaria de Brennand outside Recife, which is an old ceramics factory crammed with ceramic artworks of it's owner, Francisco Brennand, who left Brazil in 1945 and returned in 1971. An weird, interesting place. The shop has some of his ceramic bowls and stuff for sale, but prices are steep. We took a taxi right back to Olinda and can't decide whether we should go to Recife's Boa Viagem beach, which is supposedly lit by floodlights at night or just have a peaceful evening.

Olaria de Brennard	Fountain in Olaria de Brennard
In Olaria de Brennard	Olaria de Brennard
Black swan in Olaria de Brennard pool	Flower with bee
Flower	Inside Olaria de Brennard there are thousands of ceramics
Olaria de Brennard	Recife Taxi

We'd like to go to a Dutch/Indonesian restaurant and after we can't find it, we land up at a real posh restaurant at the Praña Joño Afredo in Olinda. The food is good, if not exceptional. They even write "We wish you a good appetite" using yellow sauce on the rim of the plate in German (the waiter had asked us where we came from when we arrived). I had a glass of wine which wasn't really wine yet but better than the last try.  We retire to bed early, I sleep upstairs again.

View onto downtown Recife skyline from our Olina Pousada

Continue to 1.3 Exploring Olinda, fly back to Sao Paolo