Fortaleza
— — where the trade winds reach the city before the sun does.
Not only on a wall.
“Fortaleza wakes early. Jangadas, the small lateen-sailed log rafts that have fished this coast for centuries, come in to Mucuripe before the heat builds. Along the Praia de Iracema the kiosks open for tapioca and strong coffee. By late afternoon the breeze that crosses the city from the headlands has cooled the long promenade for the evening capoeira circles.
Fortaleza, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Fortaleza is the capital of the state of Ceará, on the Atlantic coast of north-east Brazil, with a metropolitan population of around 4 million. The city grew from the Dutch Fort Schoonenborch of 1649, retaken and renamed by the Portuguese as the Fortaleza de Nossa Senhora da Assunção, which gave the city its name. Trade winds blow steadily from the south-east most of the year, keeping evenings cooler than the latitude, three degrees south of the equator, would suggest, and pushing the surf along the coast toward the headland at Mucuripe.
The city's coastline runs roughly east to west, with Praia de Iracema and Praia do Meireles forming the central promenade and Praia do Mucuripe the working harbour. Jangadas, small lateen-rigged log rafts described in the 19th-century novels of José de Alencar, still put out from Mucuripe at dawn. The sea temperature stays above 26 °C through the year, and the broad continental shelf keeps the surf gentle along most of the central beaches, with stronger swell at Praia do Futuro to the east and at Cumbuco beyond the western limit.
The historic core holds the Mercado Central, the José de Alencar Theatre (1910) and the Catedral Metropolitana, completed in 1978 in a neo-Gothic style on a site begun nearly a century earlier. The Beira Mar promenade fills nightly with a craft fair and food kiosks. Fortaleza's Pinto Martins International Airport is one of the largest hubs in the Northeast, with direct flights to most Brazilian capitals and to Lisbon. The high season runs from July through January, with school-holiday peaks in July and December and steady occupancy along the central beach hotels.