BRAZIL

Scaling Rio de Janeiro’s Christ the Redeemer statue — one of the New Seven Wonders of the World — is among the many “wow” moments that await on a cruise to Brazil with Holland America Line. Soccer fans cruising into Sao Paulo can visit the Pele Museum in Santos, while Recife (the “Venice of Brazil”) leads to colonial Olinda, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. You can track alligators at night, go piranha fishing, and discover other jungly secrets on an Amazon cruise that calls in Manaus and Santarem.

Manaus, Brazil

If ever a city were a model for boom and bust, it would be Manaus. Like in America’s Old West, great fortunes were amassed in no time here and vanished just as quickly during the late-19th-century boom years of rubber production.
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Maceio, Brazil

Maceió comes as a surprise to first-time visitors. Alagoas, the state it's in, is traditionally cowboy country: dusty and dry. But Maceió is on a stretch of coastline marked by fine beaches, lagoons, reefs and vast mangrove swamps with manatee reserves, all of which are just beginning to be discovered by travelers. The city, in recent years, has been the engine of Brazil’s ethanol boom; tourism here has just recently started to gear up. Palm trees yield coconuts galore around Maceió, and help define the rich seafood-based cuisine. Try to sample some sururu broth, made with palm oil and coconut milk, or bredo, spinach cooked in creamy coconut-milk sauce.

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Recife, Brazil

Customs, cuisine and music in this northeastern city are so different from Rio and São Paulo that you might as well be in another country. Recife is one of Brazil's largest metro areas, with distinct neighborhoods, including an old colonial core with buildings in various states of preservation. In the Boa Viagem district, where at low tide you can see the reefs that gave the city its name, a long seafront boardwalk is a favorite spot for locals to jog and bike. Recife's nearby sister city of Olinda is a UNESCO World Heritage Site popular for its hilltop views, stunning Baroque buildings, walkable cobblestoned streets and world-famous carnaval.

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Vitoria, Brazil

Located some 500 kilometers (300 miles) north of Rio de Janeiro, on Brazil's Atlantic coast, Vitória is one of the country's oldest cities, dating from 1550. Vitória , the capital of the state of Espírito Santo—and boasting a population of more than 1.8 million—is Brazil's fourth-largest city. The metropolitan area is scattered across a patchwork of dozens of islands, but Vitória proper, dotted with evocative historic buildings, is located on one of the larger islands. Its topography is one of the most striking aspects of this city, though the welcome of its residents is also a main attraction.

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