Things to do, places to see

We've been trying to cram quite a bit into the last few days and had been meaning to spend the day in Centro since we got here. This is the old part of the city with more Portuguese architecture so it's very pretty but perhaps not maintained as well as it should be.

Carla and Patrick joined us on a visit to the San Francisco church, built in the 16th Century. It was a beautiful building and very worthwhile looking around inside to see its original features plus some modern art installations. The guide spoke no English (and neither does Carla) but with Patrick's pigeon Portuguese, we got the gist.

Back in the car and it was on to the Science Museum designed by Oscar Niemeyer the famous Brazilian architect (not famous enough to be known to me). The building was a feat of modern architecture but the free museum inside was a little sparse but interesting. We preferred the outdoor scientific installations, experiments with weight, balance and sound waves etc. There was also a very pleasant English speaking guide who took great pleasure in showing us around the entire place -inside and out.

The next day the car was in use so Patrick joined the six of us on the same half hour journey we had made along the beach on our first day here and spent the morning at the beach bar. It was overcast or raining most if the time so we spent much of the time undercover drinking and chatting interspersed by a couple of dips in the sea by those brave enough.

That evening Sean and Caroline kindly offered to babysit the girls so Gareth and I could spend our first evening out alone in Brazil - our honeymoon meal! Trip Adviser rated Mangi as the top restaurant in JP so we felt it appropriate to go there. It's essentially a kilo restaurant where there is a buffet and you pay for what you eat by weight. The food was all authentic Brazilian cuisine and the one and only English speaking waiter advised us what each dish was. So we set to work!

A kilo each of lovely mains and puddings later (that's actually quite a bit of food) we had to call it quits. We sampled a couple of juices - the fruits of which we'd never heard of. It was lovely being just the two of us (since it was officially our honeymoon but we couldn't allow the kids to miss a holiday like this!) which is a fairly rare occurrence. Gareth and I chatted over the good and bad times during the varied trip and the very few days we had left here in Brazil.