Fortaleza

Fortaleza grew from a Dutch fort of 1649 and is now one of the largest cities in the north-east, with its life along the seafront at Meireles and Iracema. The Mercado Central is the shopping stop, several floors of hammocks, lace, leather and cashew nuts. The Centro Dragao do Mar is a cultural complex of galleries, cinema and a planetarium in a restored warehouse district. The Centro de Turismo occupies the old public jail of 1850, its cells converted into craft stalls, which is either interesting or uncomfortable depending on how you take it. The beachfront promenade fills every evening with a night market and food stalls. For most visitors the city is the base for the coast either side rather than the destination.

History

Colonisation began in 1603, when Pero Coelho de Souza built the Fort of São Tiago and founded the settlement of Nova Lisboa, which Martins Soares Moreno enlarged as the Fort of São Sebastião after 1612; the Dutch took it in 1637, and under Matthias Beck the Dutch West India Company built a new fort, Schoonenborch, on the Pajeú, opened on 19 August 1649. After the Dutch surrender of 1654 the Portuguese renamed it the Fortress of Our Lady of the Assumption, which gave the city its name, Fortaleza became a village in 1726 and the capital of Ceará in 1799, and in the 19th century it grew on cotton, with a customs house built in 1812 (Wikipedia, Fortaleza).

What to look for

• A jail turned craft market - the 1850 cells converted into stalls.
• The Mercado Central - floors of hammocks, lace and leatherwork.
• Centro Dragao do Mar - galleries and cinema in restored warehouses.
• An evening promenade - the seafront night market at Meireles.

When to go

July to December, the dry half. Two days.

Practical notes

City beaches are not clean enough for comfortable swimming - the good water is out of town. Street crime is a genuine issue in the centre and on the seafront at night. Traffic is heavy. Most visitors use Fortaleza as a transit point.

Nearby

Cumbuco is west; Canoa Quebrada and Beach Park are east.

Key facts