Pomerode

Today was our big sightseeing day in Blumenau. After our walk last night, we were more familiar with where we were going which made things easier to plan. Breakfast was a bit meh at the hotel, but better than nothing. I also made a couple of ham rolls with some of the breakfast that was available so that we had something to eat around lunchtime to keep us going.

We retraced our steps from the night before starting at the Lutheran Church on the hill. It was open for visitors this morning and had an organist playing for people. An older woman greeted us in both Portuguese and German and began speaking to us. Unfortunately we didn't understand her, so she disappeared and came back with her adult son who spoke English. He explained that his mother is a volunteer guide for the church. He talked us through some of the history of the church as one of the first protestant churches in the area and how that impacted the design of the building over the years. He also spoke a little bit about their community before inviting us to stay and listen to the music.

After we visited the church we went back to the main road stopping in at a couple places along the way. The first was a museum dedicated to Dr. Blumenau and his family, namely his niece who lived in the exact house we were in. Dr. Blumenau lived in a house just behind hers that was washed away in a flood, but some of his furniture and personal items survived. We then continued around the corner through the cat garden to the mausoleum (his niece loved cats and owned about 50 throughout her life so the garden is where she buried them behind the house). The mausoleum was a simple building, but contains the remains of Blumenau, his wife, and his two children. He died while I'm Germany and was originally buried there, but his remains were eventually brought to Blumenau where he considered his true home.

Across from the mausoleum is the beer museum. There were no tours in English until 2pm, so we went back into the main center of the city. We took pictures of the traditional buildings in the daylight before stopping at the main church in the center. It was incredibly modern and I liked how the stations of the cross were all stained glass windows along the sides of the church. We walked a bit further into town to the theater and city hall to eat our little rolls before walking back the way we came to the beer museum.

The visit at the museum was really good, and it certainly helped that we got to taste some local beer as we went along. Our guide took us through the brewing process as well as some of the history about beer. She also told us about Blumenau's history of beer. The city is susceptible to floods because it's in the valley, so breweries can be greatly impacted. It's also not a good locations to grow hops, so they have them imported. She told us about Catharina Sours which is a recipe that was developed in Brazil that other brewers can follow. The sour was nice! We also had a Belgian style beer that smelled like bananas but tasted nothing like them. It was strange! We enjoyed the room with all the different beer cans from around the world, including Brewdog. To stimulate tourism, Blumenau has Oktoberfest every year and over doubles its population each October. Pretty crazy!

After our museum visit, we walked about 45 minutes to the German Village where Oktoberfest takes place. It had great reviews on TripAdvisor, but when we arrived we were pretty underwhelmed. Many things were closed, it was very quiet, especially for a Saturday afternoon, and only one bar had a decent beer selection. We didn't linger here, and walked back to the main center of town.

We popped back to the hotel to cool down before running back into town for a quick Subway dinner before we waited at the theater to try and get tickets for the Blumenau Philharmonic that had a free concert that night. Lucky for us, lots of people didn't show up, so we got to see the show. The music was lovely. The orchestra played a selection of Beethoven's pieces. It was nice to hear live music again. After the show finished, we walked around town and followed the sounds of loud music and happy people to an outdoor bar with live music and lots of locals dancing. It was pretty cool, but after the calm orchestral music, I was a bit overwhelmed! We ordered a couple beers and enjoyed the people watching and music until it closed around 23:00. We then went back to the hotel after what felt like a very full, well-rounded day!Read more