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Fortaleza is a city in northeast Brazil. It’s known for its urban beaches.
Airport
We arrived at Pinto Martins International Airport. It’s conveniently located just 20 minutes from the Fortaleza city center.
Hotel Meireles
We stayed at Hotel Meireles (formerly Pousada dos Coqueiros). The location was excellent, just a five minute walk to Meireles Beach (Praia de Meireles). The owner was a bit strange: Our room wasn’t ready because we arrived at 7am, but when we finally checked in at around 11am, there were no sheets on the beds. When I asked him for sheets, he snapped at me, blamed us for rushing the staff to prepare the room, then asked us to leave the room for the staff’s safety while they put sheets on the beds.
The room was ok. It had a funny smell and the beds weren’t too comfortable. Breakfast was included and had a nice variety, although it ended quite early at 9:30. Not good for someone like me who likes to sleep in. As expected during the World Cup, we definitely overpaid for the hotel as well. It was not worth the inflated prices we paid!
Pizzeria Itália Beach (Permanently Closed)
For restaurants, we had some bad luck but two places caught our attention. The first was Pizzeria Itália Beach. They had excellent pizza and pasta dishes plus very good gelato, all for reasonable prices.
Coco Bambu
One of the best restaurants I ate at in all of Brazil was Coco Bambu, which has several branches around the country. It was expensive by Brazilian terms, but the food was incredible. In fact, we ate there two nights in a row. The menu is huge and each dish is enough for two or even three people.
One night, we ate ceviche de salmão (salmon ceviche) followed by lagosta á thermidor (lobster thermidor) and torta de banana cremosa (banana cream pie). The other night, we had escondidinho de carne de sol (a kind of meat pie), camarões jangadeiro (shrimp covered in cream cheese, battered, and fried, served over a bed of rice mixed with vegetables and potatoes), and torta de maçã (apple pie a la mode).
Nightlife
For nightlife, locals prefer the bars and clubs at Iracema Beach (Praia de Iracema), to the west of Meireles Beach. We didn’t go out there but I heard good things about it from others who did.
