Vila Arraes

We have been in Recife before and had a tour of the city. For today we decided to take an Uber to two different places.
We took a shuttle to the port entrance and then called for Uber to reach Officina Ceramica Francisca Brennand.

It was about 40 min ride through very rough neighbourhoods. And then we entered a forest. For 2 miles we drove through the most beautiful park like forest . Then we entered an open air museum garden with sculptures. Finally we reached an entrance to the museum.

Brennand primarily displayed his work at the Oficina Brennand, the compound encompassing the working tile factory, museum, chapel, and café. The Oficina features around 2,000 of Brennand's pieces in enormous open halls, outdoor monuments, alters, chapels, and gardens.
It was totally unexpected place. We enjoyed it for around 90min, we still had another our until the 1:00pm opening of the other museum. Time for lunch.
Right after lunch, we called another Uber and went to Ricardo Brennard Institute.
Again, we drove through very poor areas until we entered an amazing park with perfect landscape, lakes and sculptures.
Hard to describe how beautiful it is.

It is a cultural not-for-profit private organization, inaugurated in 2002 by the Brazilian collector and businessman Ricardo Brennand. It comprises a museum, an art gallery, a library and a large park.

Ricardo Brennard who died in 2020 from Covid is a cousin of the sculptor Francisco Brennard.

There are items from Early Middle Ages to 20th century, with strong emphasis in objects, documents and artwork related to Colonial and Dutch Brazil, including the world's largest assemblage of paintings by Frans Post.

The institute also houses one of the largest collections of armory in the world, with 3,000 pieces, the majority of which were produced in Europe and Asia between the 14th and 19th centuries. The library has over 62 thousand volumes, ranging from 16th to 20th century.

We walked through the park and the museums win an open mouth. Every corner had a surprise. We only had 2 hours to spend there. We could easily spend 2 days.

Back on Uber and in 30 minutes we were at the terminal taking shuttle to the ship.

In the evening we had a lovely dinner.Read more