Florianopolis is, next to Camboriu, argentineans favorite destination in Brazil. The reasons are simple: the beaches are pretty and nearby -even when ‘nearby’ means an entire day bus ride or boarding an airplane. For this reason, many people consider this place the argentinean colonies of the south of Brasil, although it’s not hard to find uruguayans and chileans on vacations in these destinations as well. And the local tourism market has adapted quite well, the local brazilians who work in services usually handle a basic spanish decent enough to understand the requirements of those who don’t speak portuguese -something not so common in the rest of Brazil.

Florianopolis is, for those who don’t know it, an island with 42 beaches and many types of waves, going from the biggest and strongest ones perfect for surf at Mole, or the quiet ones, as in Barra da Lagoa, which is where we stayed at for a couple of days.
This last destination has grown a lot, to the point that Florianopolis tourism office is strongly recommending to visit the place, since finding lodging, even during high season, is not as complicated as in other places of the island. You can find small apartments with one bedroom, bathroom and kitchen for 25 reais per person, per day, and even less if you stay a few blocks away from the beach. Before you ask: it’s quite easy to find a place, as soon as you get off the bus, there will be people offering you rooms, in our case, we went there towards the end of january and it took us less than five minutes to find a place.

To get to Barra da Lagoa, or any beach on the north side of the island, the most popular side, you have to go the local bus terminal, located next to the rodoviaria. There’s not direct service, so you’ll have to make a connection at the Lagoa de ConceiƧao bus stop -also known as TLAG, pronounced “tilagi”- next to the lagoon located almost in the center of the island. From there, just take another bus that goes up to Barra da Lagoa, stopping at Mole beach first. The ride fare is 2.30 reais one way. There are two lines: one goes direct (with only one stop) and the other one makes many stops along the way. The schedule is placed at the bus stops.
Despite the last years growth, Barra still is a quiet place, mith many lodges and not big hotels or commerces. Restaurants are located in front of the beach, and seafood is the most popular around. Sequencia de camarao is a highly recommended plate, a large amount of food -shrimp, fried fish, feijao (black beans), rice, fries, among others- for 35 reais, big enough to feed three people. If you don’t want to spend much, you can get single dishes of fried chicken or fish for under 8 reais. To snack on the beach, you have the traditional grilled cheese on a stick vendors walking around the shores. An useful tip: there’s at least one money exchange office, the rates are reasonable, although a few cents less than at the biggest cities.

Barra da Lagoa beach is extremely calm; not as calm as Praia do Farol at Ilha do Mel, though. It’s ideal to relax and float without many concerns. If you want to surf, you can take a bus to Mole beach, which is close and has big waves. By the way, from Barra you can join a tour to Campeche island. It seemed nice in the pictures, although we couldn’t go because we had to buy the tickets several days beforehand, since there’s a high demand.
We still have to mention Rio da Lagoa and Prainha, but we’ll leave that for the next entry about Barra da Lagoa.