Natal
— the city of dunes and December light.
Not only on a wall.
“Natal sits where the Potengi River meets the Atlantic on Brazil's northeast coast. The city is named for the Portuguese word for Christmas. The fort that founded it was begun on Epiphany of 1598, and the town itself was chartered on Christmas Day a year later. Outside the centre, the dunes of Genipabu run for miles, and Ponta Negra ends at the Morro do Careca, a bald sand hill the wind keeps clean.
Natal, 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.
Natal is the capital of Rio Grande do Norte, on the eastern tip of Brazil's northeast coast where the Potengi River opens to the Atlantic. The city was chartered on December 25, 1599, taking the Portuguese word for Christmas as its name. The population sits near 800,000 across 167 square kilometres. The Forte dos Reis Magos, a star-shaped stone fortress at the river mouth, was begun on Epiphany of 1598 and still stands as the oldest building in the city.
The dunes north of the city, at Genipabu, run more than ten kilometres along the coast and shift each year with the trade winds off the Atlantic. Some reach thirty metres above the sea. Beach buggies cross them on a set of bumpy circuits the locals call com emoção, with feeling. South of the centre, Ponta Negra ends at the Morro do Careca, a steep sand hill held bald by the wind and protected from foot traffic since the 1990s to slow erosion.
The Forte dos Reis Magos opens daily and sits at the tip of the breakwater that closes the Potengi mouth. Ponta Negra Beach holds most of the city's hotels along a four-kilometre arc; the Morro do Careca dune at its southern end is the most photographed landmark in Rio Grande do Norte. The Genipabu dunes, twenty-five kilometres north of the city, are reached by beach-buggy tours that leave from Praia do Forte each morning and end at a freshwater lagoon.