From Maceió seven buses a day run to Aracaju, capital of the neighbouring state of Sergipe with a population of 430,000, a little-visited and rather anonymous place. Although the Portuguese founded a colony here in 1592, the capital of the infant state was moved to nearby São Cristóvão. Then, in the mid-nineteenth century, there was a sudden vogue for purpose-built administrative centres (similar to the urge that led to the construction of Brasília a century later), and the core of modern Aracaju was thrown up overnight, becoming the state capital again in 1855. Like the other state capitals planned and built in the nineteenth century, Aracaju is - to put it mildly - something of an architectural desert, built on an American-style grid layout. Oil wealth has stimulated a lot of recent building and given the city council enough money to keep everything clean and tidy, but there is a very un-Brazilian dullness about the place. However, the people are friendly, some of the beaches are good, and the small colonial towns of Laranjeiras and São Cristóvão are only a short bus ride away. Hotels in Aracaju |
ROOMS BRAZIL
