Angra dos Reis

Portuguese sailors entered the bay on 6 January 1502, the feast of the Three Kings, and named it Angra dos Reis — the cove of the Kings. Settlement has been continuous since 1556. The village grew into a port, and in 1835 it was raised to the status of a city under the name of Angra dos Reis.

Through the 19th century Angra was one of the most important ports of the coast of Rio de Janeiro. It shipped much of the coffee grown in the Paraíba valley. When railways bypassed it after 1872 the port declined, but in the 1920s a metre-gauge line connected it to Minas Gerais and Goiás, and the town became a terminus for their farm produce. In the mid-20th century the port was a key link for the national steel company at Volta Redonda, receiving coking coal from Santa Catarina and later shipping steel exports.

Industry followed. A shipyard was founded by the Dutch industrialist Cornelis Verolme, Petrobras built a crude oil terminal on the bay, and Brazil's nuclear power plant rose on Itaorna beach, with Angra I connected to the grid in 1985 and Angra II in 2000. Offshore, Ilha Grande was closed to outsiders for most of the 20th century while it held a quarantine station and then a high-security prison. Tourism grew around the bay and its islands, and at the start of 2010 heavy rain caused landslides that destroyed homes and hotels, above all on Ilha Grande.

Angra keeps a rich colonial heritage, with many buildings protected by the national heritage institute IPHAN: large colonial town houses such as the Casa de Cultura Poeta Brasil dos Reis, the churches of Santa Luzia and the Matriz of Nossa Senhora da Conceição, the Carmo convent and the ruins of the convent of São Bernardino de Sena.

Two religious festivals carry that history into the present. The Festa do Divino Espírito Santo, a Portuguese tradition that reached Angra in the 17th century, is held at Pentecost; during the gold-rush era of the 18th century it gained the custom of crowning a boy from a local family as the emperor of the Holy Spirit. The Festa de São Benedito, on the Monday after Easter, is one of the most important religious and cultural events in the state; its brotherhood was founded in the 17th century by enslaved and freed Black people at the São Bernardino convent.

The bay shapes the rest of local culture. Fishing communities work its waters, sailing is a strong tradition with a yacht club that organises a traditional sailing event every January, and many of the islands belong to wealthy Brazilians and celebrities, whose mansions are part of the view from the tour boats. The plastic surgeon Ivo Pitanguy was among the bay's best-known residents.

Angra dos Reis had about 167,000 people in the 2022 census, spread across a long, mountainous municipality of more than 800 square kilometres. Besides the city itself there are districts such as Jacuecanga, Cunhambebe and Mambucaba along the coast, and Abraão and Praia de Araçatiba on Ilha Grande. Much of the town is hemmed in by hills, and homes climbing the slopes have been hit repeatedly by landslides in heavy rain.

The economy rests on commerce, fishing, industry, services and tourism. The Petrobras oil terminal makes the port one of the busiest in Brazil, the former Verolme shipyard builds and repairs vessels, and the nuclear plant employs about 3,000 people directly. Bananas are the main crop on the hillsides, with smaller amounts of palm hearts and coconuts.

The rhythm of the town follows both the port and the season. On weekdays the centre is busy with shopping, offices and commuters on the 28 local bus lines; at weekends and in summer, visitors from Rio and São Paulo fill the piers, the boats and the coast road, and the bay fills with yachts and schooners. Out of season it is a quieter working town.

Angra eats from the bay. Grilled and fried fish, prawns, squid and mussels fill the menus, and moqueca — fish or seafood stewed in a clay pot with tomato, onion, coriander and, in the Bahian style, palm oil and coconut milk — is a standard dinner in the restaurants of the centre and on Ilha Grande. Plates of fried fish or bolinhos de bacalhau (salt-cod fritters) are shared over cold beer.

Lunch for many people is a comida a quilo, a self-service buffet paid by weight, or a prato feito, a set plate of rice, beans, salad and a piece of fish or meat. Bananas, the main crop of the hillsides, turn up fried as a side dish and in sweets, and palmito, the heart of palm, appears in salads and pastries.

On the beaches and boats the menu is simple: cold coconut water, grilled cheese on a stick, fried snacks and fruit. The caipirinha, made with cachaça, lime and sugar, is the standard drink, as it is all along the coast.