Armação dos Búzios

Before the Portuguese, the peninsula was Tupinambá country. In the 16th century French traders came for brazilwood and allied with the Tupinambá, until the Portuguese drove them out after violent clashes that also left the Indigenous population greatly reduced. For a long time afterwards the coves were used for smuggling, slave-trading and whaling: Praia dos Ossos, the beach of bones, was named after the whale bones that piled up on the shore, the village lamps burned whale oil, and the Sant'Ana chapel on the hill above was built with stone and whale oil.

After the slave trade was abolished around 1850, Búzios settled into a quieter life of farming and fishing. By the mid-20th century it was already a discreet escape for some of Rio's high society, but it remained a small fishing village and a district of Cabo Frio.

That changed in 1964, when the French actress Brigitte Bardot came with her Brazilian-based boyfriend Bob Zagury. She returned and spent Christmas in a house on the Rua das Pedras, and the world's press followed her to the isolated village. Tourism and building followed her fame, and Búzios later became a municipality of its own. The waterfront promenade is named Orla Bardot in her honour.

Búzios trades on an image of easy, cosmopolitan beach life that dates from the Bardot years — a fishing village where film stars, artists and Rio's wealthy mixed with local fishermen. That image still shapes the town: boutiques, galleries and restaurants occupy the old houses of the centre, and the evening walk along the Rua das Pedras and the Orla Bardot is the social centre of the resort.

The peninsula has two characters. The western beaches, facing the bay, are calm and clear, suited to families, swimming and snorkelling, while the eastern beaches face the open sea and draw surfers, water-sports fans and a younger crowd. Schooner trips round the beaches and out to an island are part of a visit, and the fishing boats still anchored off Armação and Ossos recall the old village.

Visitors come from across Brazil and from abroad, especially in the summer holidays. Nightlife runs late, with bars and clubs filling only towards midnight.

The 2022 census counted about 40,000 people in the municipality. Tourism dominates the economy — guesthouses, restaurants, shops, boat trips and building work — and many residents moved here from elsewhere in Brazil and abroad to work in it, while older fishing families remain in the original neighbourhoods by the bay.

Life follows the seasons. From December to Carnival the town is full, traffic clogs the narrow roads and the beaches are crowded; in winter many businesses slow down and the town belongs largely to residents. Most locals live away from the resort streets, in neighbourhoods away from the beaches, and commute to work in the hotels and restaurants. Growth has brought pressure on water, roads and the coast, and the balance between building and protecting the beaches and hillsides is a constant local issue. Parts of the peninsula's remaining coastal vegetation and beaches now lie inside the Costa do Sol State Park.

Seafood is the heart of eating in Búzios. Fish from the local boats is grilled whole or in fillets, shrimp is fried or cooked in sauces, and moqueca, the Brazilian fish stew, appears on many menus, served with rice and pirão, a porridge-like dish of cassava in fish stock. Beach kiosks serve fried fish, portions of shrimp, cold beer and caipirinhas, along with coconut water from the shell.

The Rua das Pedras and the Orla Bardot hold the town's restaurants, from simple places serving the prato feito, the plate of rice, beans, salad and a main dish, to more ambitious kitchens run by cooks from across Brazil and abroad who settled here, and ice-cream and juice shops stay open late.

As elsewhere in Brazil, the evening often begins with a caipirinha of cachaça, lime and sugar, or a caipiroska made with vodka, and ends late in the bars of the centre.