Things to do
10-
Alto da Sé
The top of the hill and the town's gathering place, a terrace of craft stalls and tapioca griddles with the cathedral on one side and the towers of Recife laid out across the water on the other. Busiest at sunset and on Sunday afternoons.
-
Convento de São Francisco
The first Franciscan house founded in Brazil, dating from 1585, with azulejo panels running the length of the cloister and the sea visible from the sacristy windows. The chapels of São Roque and Sant'Ana sit inside the same complex.
-
Igreja da Sé
The cathedral of the archdiocese, begun in 1540 as a chapel and rebuilt after Dutch forces burned the town in 1631. A twentieth century restoration stripped it back to whitewash and stone, which is why it reads plainer than everything around it.
-
Instituto Ricardo Brennand
A mock Tudor castle in western Recife holding what is reckoned the largest private collection of arms and armour anywhere, alongside the biggest single holding of Frans Post, who painted Dutch Brazil from life in the 1630s.
-
Marco Zero do Recife
The point the city measures itself from, a compass rose set into the pavement of Praça Rio Branco at the head of the old port. Francisco Brennand's sculpture park stands on the reef opposite, reached by a short boat across the water.
-
Mosteiro de São Bento
Benedictine since 1582, holding a gilded cedar high altar that was crated to New York for a Guggenheim exhibition in 2001 and brought back. Gregorian chant is sung at the Sunday morning mass, which is when the church is worth timing.
-
Museu Cais do Sertão
A museum of the dry interior and of Luiz Gonzaga, built into a warehouse on the Recife docks and worked through sound, film and instruments rather than glass cases. A wristband follows each visitor and records what they play.
-
Paço do Frevo
A museum of frevo in a restored 1920s building on Recife's old harbour square, with dance studios upstairs that visitors watch from a gallery. Frevo was inscribed on the UNESCO intangible heritage list in 2012, and this is where it is taught.
-
Pousada dos Quatro Cantos
A nineteenth century merchant's house at the crossroads it takes its name from, rooms arranged around a courtyard and a walled garden. It sits inside the historic centre, on the route the Carnival blocks take, which is a warning for four days a year.
-
Praia de Boa Viagem
Recife's city beach, seven kilometres of sand with a reef a few hundred metres out that turns the water inside it into tidal pools. Shark attacks recorded since 1992 have made the flags and the lifeguard lines something to read rather than ignore.