Paraty - Parati - Information

The small coastal village of Parati is a virtual museum within a tropical paradise. It is located 125 miles southeast of Rio and possesses one of the finest "collections" of classical 18th century Portuguese colonial buildings. ( Olinda, a UNESCO World Heritage City, located near Recife also has a plethora of beautifully preserved Portuguese and Dutch colonial buildings.) In the early 1700's Parati was a major gold shipping port. Most of the gold from the inland province of Minas Gerais was painstainkingly transported over mountains to Parati and then shipped to Portugal. With the advent of the construction of a new road linking central Minas Gerais to the Atlantic coast to where now is the State of Espirito Santo the town quickly went into decline. Today it has become a major international destination for sophisticated tourists seeking sunshine and spectacular beaches (including snorkling and scuba) all within a classical architectural setting. Automobile traffic is forbidden inside the city in order to preserve the tranquil ambience.Located on the coast of the state of Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil, Paraty (or Parati) is a preserved Portuguese colonial and Brazilian imperial (1822-1889) town. Paraty has become a popular tourist area in recent years, renowned for the beauty of the town and of the magnificence of the coast and mountains in the region.

The town is located on the Bay of Angra dos Reis, which is dotted with tropical islands. Rising up some 1,000 meters behind the town are the tropical forests, mountains, and waterfalls of the Sea Range (Serra do Mar) in the Serra da Bocaina National Park.

Paraty is popular with visitors from Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, the rest of Brazil and the world.

The flora which supports the red scroll are a branch of coffee tree and a stalk of sugarcane. The scroll itself bears the inscription 1660 Paraty 1844. These are the dates that Paraty initially achieved status as a town and then later city status. Above the shield is a crown consisting of five towers, with the center tower emblazoned with a red shield bearing a gold fleur-de-lis, which symbolizes Our Lady of Remedies, the patron saint of the city.

History

Paraty was founded formally as a town by Portuguese colonizers in 1667, in a region populated by the Guaianas Indians.

The Guaiana people who lived where the city now stands called the entire area Paraty. In the Tupi language Paraty means river of fish. Even today the Brazilian Mullet (Mugil Brasiliensis) still come back to spawn in the rivers that spill into the Bay of Paraty. When the region was colonized by the Portuguese, they adopted the Guaianás name for their new town.

After the discovery of the world's richest gold mines in 1696 in the mountains of Minas Gerais, Paraty became an export port for gold to Rio de Janeiro and from there on to Portugal. This discovery led to the construction of the "Caminho do Ouro" or "Gold Trail", a 1200 kilometer road paved with large stones that connected Paraty to Diamantina via Ouro Preto and Tiradentes. Not only was it was used to transport gold to Paraty, but it was also used to convey supplies, miners and African slaves by mule train over the mountains to and from the gold mining areas. Two substantial sections of the Caminho do Ouro have been excavated near Paraty and are now a popular tourist destination for hiking. The Gold Trail fell into disuse because of attacks on the gold laden ships bound for Portugal by pirates based in the nearby port of Trindade. Eventually a safer overland route from Minas Gerais to Rio de Janeiro was created because of these pirate raids. Finally, the gold itself began to run out in the late 1700s, and Paraty declined.

The city's economic activity revived as a port for a new boom, the coffee trade of the Paraiba do Sul River Valley in the early 1800s, until a railway along the valley created cheaper transport to the port of Rio. Since then, Paraty has been out of the mainstream, which is why it did not change for centuries, until a paved road was built from Rio to Santos, near Sao Paulo, in the 1970s. The city then began a new cycle of activity, which transformed a small, almost abandoned town living on very limited economic activity, mainly fishing and agriculture (bananas, cachaca, manioc, sugarcane) into what is now known as one of the "must see" tourism attractions in Brazil