Where to Stay in Florianópolis, Santa Catarina

What is Florianópolis known for?

Most of Florianópolis lies on the island of Santa Catarina, where a large lagoon, forested mountains and a long run of sand leave only a small share of the ground properly urban. Museums hold the other half of it. The Santa Catarina Art Museum, the Museu Victor Meirelles and the Museu da Imagem e do Som de Santa Catarina sit in that built-up part, along with the cathedral.

What are the main landmarks in Florianópolis?

Churches and museums split the list. The cathedral anchors it, with the Igreja Nossa Senhora do Parto, the Igreja São Sebastião and the Igreja de Nossa Senhora do Rosário e São Benedito behind it. Collections run wide.

The Santa Catarina Art Museum, MArquE (UFSC), the Museu Homem do Sambaqui and the Museu do Brinquedo da Ilha de Santa Catarina sit alongside the Museu da Escola Catarinense and the Museu do Presépio, while the Estação de Elevação Mecânica - Museu do Saneamento takes sanitation.

What is the history of Florianópolis?

Florianópolis dates from 1726. The island of Santa Catarina carried the settlement first, and the churches that survive from those centuries, the Igreja da Ordem Terceira de São Francisco da Penitência, the Igreja de Nossa Senhora do Rosário e São Benedito and the Capela da Irmandade do Divino Espírito Santo, mark how the town was organised around its brotherhoods. Victor Meirelles was born here.

Casa Natal de Victor Meirelles marks his birthplace, and the Museu Victor Meirelles and the Santa Catarina Art Museum both stand in the same built-up core. Government followed. As capital of Santa Catarina the city gathered the institutions the state needed, which is why the Museu do Judiciário Catarinense, the Memorial da Procuradoria da República em Santa Catarina and Santa Catarina's Historical Museum all keep their records here rather than elsewhere.

Schools and clubs left their own memorials. The Museu da Escola Catarinense and the Memorial do Centro Educacional Menino Jesus hold the teaching side, the Memorial do Figueirense Futebol Clube the sporting one, and the Centro de Documentação - Casa da Memória and the Museu da Imagem e do Som de Santa Catarina gather paper and film from across the island and the mainland.

Where is Florianópolis?

Some 675 square kilometres make up the município, and most of that is the Ilha de Santa Catarina: beaches around the rim, forested mountains through the middle and a large lagoon inside. Only a small part is urban. Two bridges carry the island to the mainland, where the rest of Florianópolis and the wider metropolitan area continue on the coast of southern Brazil.

What is the climate of Florianópolis?

Water surrounds nearly everything here. The Ilha de Santa Catarina takes its weather from the sea on every side, so the subtropical year of the southern hemisphere arrives moderated, with the warm months around the turn of the year and the cooler ones in the middle. Nothing on the island is far from water, and the large lagoon and the beaches keep the extremes off, so the season shapes what a visit is for rather than whether it happens at all.

How do you get to Florianópolis?

Two bridges are the whole story of arriving. Everything reaching the Ilha de Santa Catarina from the rest of Santa Catarina crosses one of them, and the mainland part of Florianópolis sits on the far side of that crossing with the metropolitan area behind it. Capital status helps.

Being the seat of Santa Catarina brings in traffic that has nothing to do with the beaches, and the museums of the old core absorb some of it.